


First Comes Love

by Zillabird



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Violence, F/M, Family Drama, Family Secrets, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zillabird/pseuds/Zillabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are never pretty in real life. They don't just fall into place like perfectly cut jigsaw puzzle pieces. Jason never expected to start having feelings for his older not really brother, Dick, but he does. He also never expected that same older not really brother to return those feelings. But Dick does. And that would be perfect, jigsaw pieces clicking together to make a pretty picture. But a secret Dick has worked hard to keep from his family gets blown to the forefront and Jason has to adapt into a relationship he was already unsure about, the family that they are making maybe too much for Jason to accept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaRaEa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaRaEa/gifts).



> Please note that because of the nature of writing and posting, without completing the story first, means that I am not aware of all the places this story may go. Tags and warnings may be added as the story progresses.
> 
> This story is dedicated to one of my best friends, Kat, who has suffered many long hours of listening to me rant about Batboys. Her patience and understanding is more than deserving of a million fics, although hopefully I can do her some justice with one. Kat, I hope it's everything you want it to be.

**Blüdhaven: Eleven Years Earlier**

Bruce taught him better than this.

There’s equal parts shame and bitter pride as the thought crosses his mind. He does know better, has been trained far too well to think chasing Talia al Ghul over skyscrapers is a good idea. And not because she’s a criminal, not because she’s been bouncing in and out of Bruce’s bed, not because she’s undoubtedly got a dark agenda bringing her to Dick’s city.

He’s chasing her because she’d placed a soft, manicured hand against Dick’s lower back and whispered in his ear. “Tag, you’re it.”

He hadn’t even known she was there and it irritated him. He was better than that, or at least he’d hoped he was. Every failure was just a reminder of Bruce’s angry words, a niggling doubt in the back of Dick’s mind that maybe the bastard had been right.

He pushed off the ledge of city hall with his back foot, flipping across the gap in buildings before landing smoothly on the adjacent building and continuing chase. She was quick, well trained, but speed and agility had always been Dick’s strongest suit. He dove forward, taking her down wearing a proud grin on his face beneath the black domino covering his eyes. “Tag.”

Dick wasn’t sitting on her as much as he was sitting over her, giving Talia plenty of room to roll over and look up at him. She wasn’t that much older than him, Dick knew that. Another reason he’d always found her and Bruce’s… _thing_ , weird. The tight black suit she wore squished everything right up front and Dick found himself dragging his eyes back up to her face. She smirked, like she knew exactly where he’d been looking. Her hand snapped out before he could stop her and fingers trailed over his chest. “I like this one better.”

“This one?” he asked.

“Nightwing,” Talia said. “I like it better than your other mask.”

Robin. They each served their purpose, but from the way Talia’s hand was slipping farther and farther down he was pretty sure she meant the costume. Robin was the costume of a child. Nightwing… well, Dick wasn’t a child anymore. He grabbed her wrist, stopping the descent before it became more uncomfortable than he was ready for. He still wore a cup, in a suit this thin and tight he had to, but that wasn’t going to stop Talia from bringing a rise out of him. In more ways than one.

“What are you doing in my city?” Dick asked.

Talia laughed, little peals of laughter that still carried that cloying accent of hers. “Are you honestly going to pretend that you’re chasing me for this city? I promise, Richard, your city is safe from both the League and myself.”

“Then why are you here?” Dick asked, not going to drop it that easily.

Something shuttered behind dark eyes, that smile slipping and Talia twisted, bringing her legs up and kicking him in the chest. Dick fell backwards, rolling onto his shoulders and into a handstand before kicking down. She was still on the roof, sitting with her knees pulled up closer to her chest and her hands reaching back behind her to hold herself up.

“Talia-“

“Richard,” she said, finally climbing to her feet. She walked over, not reacting to the way he tensed as she approached, and put her hand on his shoulder. “I came to see you.”

If she could have seen behind the white lenses of his mask, she’d have been able to read the confusion in his bright blue eyes. “Why?”

Talia let go, turned and walked to the edge of the rooftop. “I love him.”

Dick’s expression hardened, his teeth ground together, and he bit out a bitter, “You came to talk about him?”

“No,” Talia said, turning around to spare him a single glare for interrupting and then facing the city once more. “I love him, but I’ll never have him. He’ll never be mine. Father has illusions of what will become of him, of us. It will always be something that he controls. And I want something that’s mine.”

“Great,” Dick said, still not sure what Talia’s game was. “And you think I can help with that?”

“In a way.” She was always so cryptic. A beat of silence that, surprisingly, Dick didn’t fill. “I’m supposed to do something soon. Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve hurting anyone. But before I do, I want something that’s all mine tonight.”

It all made sense. The chase, the game, the soft touches over his chest and suit. Dick arched an eyebrow. “You think I’m going to be yours for the night.”

Talia smirked and faced him again. “No, Richard. You’re his. You’ll always be his, no matter how far away you run from him and his city.”

“If this is your attempt at seduction, I’m going to forewarn you that you’re not being very successful,” Dick said, the words rotten on his tongue. He wasn’t Bruce’s. He had _left_ Bruce. But he didn’t move when she touched him and a dark, angry voice in the back of his head said that if Bruce could take Robin and give it to somebody else, what was wrong with taking what Talia was offering. “Why me?”

“Why not?”

Dick’s lips thinned, consideration weighing heavily in him. “Why should I trust you?”

“Any other night, you shouldn’t. But tonight, I have no aspersions on anything but an hour or two of your time,” Talia said. But she could see his indecision. “I chose you because you’ll have your own reasons for doing this.”

“And those reasons don’t bother you?” Dick asked.

Talia met the mask with surety in her gaze. “This is about _me_ , Richard. I care little for your reasons.”

Dick’s hands moved slowly, but then wrapped his hands around her waist. She was slim, manipulatively so because when he held her like this he could feel all the muscle beneath his fingertips. All that dangerous lethality that was hidden beneath beauty and pretty words.

“Kiss me,” she ordered, and Dick met her lips without a moment’s hesitation.

His hands scooped under her ass, lifting her so that her legs could wrap around his waist. He pressed her back against the door leading to the staircase down into the building, never breaking away from Talia’s lips. She wasn’t soft or weak, could take being pressed up against the wall. Her heels dug into his lower back and her fingers dragged over his chest again. “Turn off your defenses.”

Dick moved his lips down to her neck, ignoring her order.

“Richard, your defenses,” Talia said, tilting her head to give him more room.

It went against everything in him to turn off the defenses in his suit, to put that kind of vulnerability in her hands. But after a brief moment, he let go of Talia with one hand to press the code into the lining of the suit. There was no sign that it had worked, intentional of course, but Dick knew they were off. He didn’t strip yet, preferring Talia to show some vulnerability instead and grabbed the zipper holding her jacket together up front. It slid down like cutting through butter and she shimmied it off her shoulders before reaching down and pulling the tank top off.

They spent the next few moments doing nothing but that, kissing with firm lips and biting teeth while clothes were thrown around the rooftop. Dick’s suit was rolled down to his thighs and Talia was left with her bra, unclasped. She brushed her fingers over his mask and he tensed. “Talia, no.”

“I already know who you are, Richard,” Talia said. She did. It didn’t make that _complete_ nakedness any easier. He ground his teeth and then nodded, once. Her nails dug in between the mask and his skin before slowly pulling away. She smiled, not quite smug but certainly victorious, meeting a pair of bright blue eyes with something like anger in them. “You have beautiful eyes.”

Warmer than her Beloved’s.

“Thanks,” Dick said. He covered her mouth with his own. He didn’t want to hear about his damn eyes. He should have made her leave his mask on. Dick held her up with one arm and slid the other hand between her legs.

“Richard-“ Talia started, breaking off into a moan when fingers pressed against her. “Richard, I need more.”

Dick kissed her again to keep her quiet.

He was rougher than he normally was, even rougher now than he’d been with Kori. Fingers were pulled away and he stretched her legs wider to accommodate him, so he could squeeze closer and push inside. Feel her clench around him in surprise and then pleasure as he thrust and pushed against the wall of the rooftop. Hard, desperate, with scattered bite marks on her neck and collarbone.

To leave his mark on her, for the next time Bruce saw her.

Her nails bit into his scalp where she tangled her fingers in his hair, holding him against her mouth to swallow each of her cries as he pounded against her. Not that he’d have pulled away. Not when her mouth was quieting his own grunts, not when he could suck on her tongue and feel the way the action forced him closer and closer to the edge.

She spasmed around him, clenching and tightening. Mumbles of something foreign reached his ears and then she cried out.

Screaming Bruce’s name.

Dick tensed, freezing, and then his eyes hardened and he squeezed her hips tighter and chased his own release. Heat pooled in his stomach and he pushed into her one more time, coming to the feeling of her teeth sinking into his bottom lip.

Quiet. Without the slap of skin against skin and noises of pleasure, all that Dick could hear was their combined heavy panting and cars honking on the streets below. He pulled out, missing her warmth the moment he did, and set her down on her feet. They were both silent as they dressed, her exclamation at completion ruining this moment for both of them.

“I’m sorry,” Talia said.

It was the last thing Dick expected her to say. He grabbed his mask and put it over his eyes with the help of some spirit gum. “It’s fine. This wasn’t about us, anyways.”

It was about Talia, for her, and about Bruce, for Dick. Why would he care if she was screaming his name? The two of them, at least, would always know that it hadn’t been Bruce fucking her.

The rustle of clothing and Dick didn’t turn around. “Goodnight, Richard.”

Silence and Dick wondered if she was waiting for him to say something. He turned, “Good-“

The rooftop was empty.

**Gotham: Now**

Dick fights like a dancer. No, not a dancer. An acrobat. He fights like he flies, with grace and confidence. He fights like the entire world is watching him. Jason always figured that’s why Bruce liked him so much. Bruce does, after all, have an eye for pretty things. Now Jason knows differently and he hates that he does. Because in the process of learning why Bruce liked Dick so much, Jason had to come to the realization that he and Bruce were more alike than he’d ever care to admit. They were angry people, violent people, and Dick could _be_ angry and he could _get_ violent but he was not naturally either of those.

Dick was naturally happy. Under the right circumstances, Bruce and Jason both had it inside of themselves to become bad people. According to Bruce, Jason did become a bad person but Jason is referring to a different level of bad. Even Bruce, he thinks, can tell the difference. He’s talking about Joker or Ra’s. He’s talking about the sort of people who kill and torture for fun. Jason and Bruce are angry people and angry people hurt others.

Jason learned that the hard way from his father.

Dick is happy and no matter what he’s said in his lowest moments, he never would have been the kind of angry and violent person that Jason and Bruce could have been. Dick likes making people smile. Whether that’s as Nightwing and rescuing them from the dangers of the night or as a circus performer giving a special show to a little boy – yes, Jason had heard the story from Tim – or as a cop on the streets paying special attention to the street kids, Dick would always find a way to make other people happier.

Which brought Jason back to watching Dick from a fire escape, hands wrapped around the cold metal and leaning on the railing. His legs were crossed at the ankle, probably not the safest way to lean against a rusty railing when one had a target on their back but Jason liked to live dangerously, and his eyes followed Dick’s movements down below. The thuds of Dick’s fists and weapons hitting soft, vulnerable flesh carried easily in the still night. So did the curses spit from the gangbangers as Dick pulverized them and Dick’s own running monologue of puns and quips. “And to think, I thought tonight was going to be a dull night.”

The night was never dull with Dick. That was probably another reason he and Bruce liked him.

A gunshot that was so far wide bits of brick exploded a few feet from Jason’s head and Dick quickly disarmed the attacker and took apart the gun. The firing pin took a swan dive into the sewers – undoubtedly not the first to do that – and the pieces landed with little metal tings against the asphalt. Dick looked up, to follow the path of the bullet and assess whether it had caused any damage. The white lenses over his eyes hid the worst of Dick’s surprise but Jason could still see it in his shoulders and the way his lips parted for a brief second when Dick saw him. Then another fist was flying at Dick’s face and his attention was back in the fight.

Spinning, kicking, flipping around. Dick fought like an art form, a moving sculpture.

It lasted a few more minutes – Dick could have done it faster but Dick could have always done it faster if he didn’t waste so much time on looking good while doing it – and then the last gangbanger fell and Dick pulled zip ties out of his utility belt. Jason straightened and leaned over the left side of the railing, grabbing the ladder with both hands and letting his weight and gravity do the work in getting him to the street level. Metal clanged noisily as the ladder reached its full extension and Jason had to only drop three or four feet before he could walk over to Dick. “Wing.”

“Hood,” Dick replied, finishing zip tying one criminal and standing up from his crouch. “Want to help me move them over to the sidewalk.”

“Wouldn’t want the hardened criminals to get run over by the two o’ clock bus,” Jason said sarcastically.

Dick didn’t even glance at him, just snorted and moved to lift one. That was progress. Once upon a time, comments like that were followed by a lecture and when Dick realized the lectures weren’t working it was downgraded to irritated looks. Jason supposed now that their relationship, if it could ever have been called that, was healing, Dick was learning that Jason had a dark sense of humor. One needed it after dying and coming back.

“What are you doing on this side of the town?” Dick asked.

“Clubbing,” Jason deadpanned and then smirked behind his helmet. “I came looking for you.”

“Me?” Dick asked.

“Who else would I have any interest in on this side of town?” Jason asked.

Dick arched an eyebrow. “You think I don’t know about breakfasts with Red?”

Jason felt embarrassed. There was no reason to be. Dick had to be downright giddy. The man breathed family like it was the last oxygen on the planet and the prospect of Jason spending time with said family would be like…

Well, Jason had been about to say aphrodisiac but Jason didn’t want to go down that line of thinking.

“Okay, so maybe I’d visit Double R but I’m not here for the Replacement. I’m here to see you,” Jason said.

“Which brings me back to why,” Dick said.

Jason cleared his throat. He’d been working up to this. He’d practiced it in the goddamn mirror before turning into a red faced mess and going back to Pride and Prejudice before patrol. “You mentioned grabbing drinks now.”

Now as opposed to when Jason had first brought it up. Dick was a stickler for the rules, the rules _he_ wanted to follow anyways, and taking someone underage to the bar was something the Golden Boy had refused to do. But Jason had turned twenty one a month ago and now that he was back in the city after the job with Roy, Jason wanted drinks.

Another flash of surprise. Jason would have liked to see the look in Dick’s baby blue eyes. Dick deposited another gangbanger on the sidewalk. “When?”

“Now.” Before Jason could lose his confidence. Before he could start worrying again that Dick would see Jason giving him an inch and take a mile, before he worried that Bruce would find out about their late night meetings for coffee and company and think that was invitation to start something Jason wasn’t ready for. Or worse, for Bruce to see Dick having an influence and thinking he could use Dick to get to Jason. The younger man had thought a lot about that last part, about the way Dick would leap off a cliff for Bruce and Jason didn’t think he could stand for the man he’d once thought of as a father to try and get the Red Hood off the streets with a few well-placed words from Dick.

Because if Dick did it, if he tried, then Jason was going to cut off this mending relationship at the knees. He didn’t want to do that. Something about them had changed since Jason had been a punk little kid and Dick a resentful teen. They’d grown up or at least learned that life was too short to let competition and bitterness come between them.

“We’re patrolling now,” Dick replied.

“It’s been dead all night,” Jason said. They needed to do this now. If they didn’t, Jason would overthink it. Paranoia would kick in. That ever present slight green tint to his eyes would feed every insecurity and Jason would avoid Dick like the plague for months. Waste more time. “You had to go looking for this one and it’ll be hours before you find anything else.”

Dick hated leaving patrol when he said he’d be there and Jason could see that confliction warring on his face. Because Dick was learning about Jason too, was learning that if he said no now it could have consequences later. Could the city babysit itself for one night if it meant Jason coming closer?

Sometimes Jason felt like a scared animal which made Dick the one holding out treats and trying to get close without scaring Jason away. Sometimes that felt like a rather dramatic analogy. Too many books, he’d guess. But sometimes Dick looked at him like this and was near positive that he wasn’t the only one making that analogy in his head.

Dick smiled, suddenly, which made Jason know it wasn’t entirely real. Dick was a shitty liar but if he was good at nothing else it was smiling. Dick could nurse a broken heart and a broken arm at the same time and still grin from ear to ear. It’s why Dick’s media personal had always been a slight air head. Always smiling and always touching, both so distracting that he didn’t have to worry about keeping too many lies straight. “Alright, Little Wing. Drinks are on you.”

“You’re the ward of a billionaire,” Jason said dryly.

“Fine. You twisted my arm. Drinks are on me,” Dick said. He heaved another man over and Jason finally stepped in, grabbing the back of one man’s jacket and dragging him over to the sidewalk with the others. “Oracle’s radioing the police so they’ll be here shortly.”

“I’d like to be long gone by the time they show up,” Jason said.

Understandable since he was just as likely to be arrested by them as anything else. Not so much now, as the number of people he killed went down and the number of times he worked with the Bats, but not _the_ Bat, went up.

Sirens in the distance. “I guess that’s our cue.”

“Only if it’s a show,” Jason replied.

“Isn’t it?” Dick asked.

They changed at Dick’s place. Dick changed, at least. The black and blue costume that clung to Dick like a second skin was slightly too conspicuous for drinks on the town. Instead he changed into a shirt and a pair of jeans, both of which clung to him nearly as well as the Nightwing costume. Jason he let borrow a shirt, a green baggy thing – on Dick, at least, but on Jason with his extra height and muscle mass fit almost too tight - with too many wrinkles. Somehow he instinctively knew Dick slept in it. Beneath the scent of Alfred’s laundry detergent, Jason thought he could make out Crocky Crunch and Dick’s favorite cologne. “Does Alfred do your laundry?”

“No,” Dick said, shooting Jason a funny look as he held open the door.

“You lying?” Jason asked. “It smells like his brand.”

Dick snorted as Jason passed him to walk into the bar. “I do my own laundry but Alfred picks up my groceries sometimes. He bought the detergent.”

“Cushy,” Jason replied.

“I don’t think he trusts me to keep myself clean or fed,” Dick said.

Jason didn’t blame the old butler. Dick was a hot mess, a walking disaster with too many feelings and not enough housekeeping skills. “Table or bar?”

“Bar,” Dick said. “But down at the corner. I want some privacy.”

They took a seat, one on each side of the corner, and when the bartender came over they ordered a beer each. And then another. Jason liked the way Dick’s cheeks flushed as the alcohol hit him. He’d always been too much of a lightweight, at least to Jason who’d been drinking since before Bruce scooped him out of the gutter and could drink his liquor like he was tossing back shots of water. “You’re a cheap date.”

Something flashed in Dick’s glassy eyes at the phrasing before he replied, “Good thing I’m paying then.”

Jason upgraded to shots of whiskey while Dick kept nursing beers. They discussed patrol for a while and then Dick’s day job as one of Gotham’s finest. Conversation made a short detour to how Roy and Kori were doing before moving back into safety once more.

“-and then you got bigger. Turned into…into…” Clearly Dick’s five – no, _six_ – beers were hitting him harder than Jason’s two beers and two shots. Jason tipped back another shot to make it two and three by the time Dick finished his sentence. “You turned hot, Little Wing.”

Jason arched an eyebrow. Of all the things he’d expected Dick to say… “You don’t drink much do you?”

“Usually only when I’m sad,” Dick said. Bruce’s death had dragged him into a few bottles as had the death of Amy Rohrbach. The ending of his engagement to both Kori and Babs. Donna’s death. Jason’s death.

Jason motioned for another shot and drained that one as well before scooping his arm around Dick and lifting him off of the stool. “Come on, lightweight.”

“I have to pay,” Dick replied, pushing on Jason’s chest stubbornly and then struggling to get his wallet out of his pocket.

Jason reached for it instead and, while his motor functions were working just fine, the alcohol soaking his brain must have been doing something right because his fingers froze in Dick’s back pocket. Those tight jeans forcing his fingers against solid muscle and Jason had a split second of flashbacks to catching Dick coming out of the Bat Cave showers all toned muscle and tanned skin…

Dick’s laughter pulled him out of his memories. “Are you making fun of me because I said you were hot?”

Jason didn’t understand right away and then it hit him. Dick thought he was leaving his hand in his pocket to mock Dick’s drunk flirtations. He quickly pulled the wallet out and laid the money on the bar plus a tip. A hefty tip. Dick could afford it. “No. I guess the whiskey’s just hitting me late.”

Dick turned in his arms and something about that boneless pliancy made Jason warm. Or maybe that was just the whisky. Probably the whiskey.

A cab rolled up and Jason balanced Dick on one arm to open the door with the other, Dick clinging to him like a picture straight off a Harlequin Romance book before Jason managed to get him into the cab. “Where to?”

Jason rattled off Dick’s address. It was well within range of walking, that’s how they’d gotten to the bar after all, but Jason didn’t enjoy the thought of herding Dick and his drunk self the three blocks to Dick’s house.

“Jason?” Dick asked and Jason looked down at those pretty baby blue eyes.

“What, Goldie?” Jason asked.

“I weirded you out, didn’t I?” Dick asked.

Jason was silent and the longer he stayed silent, the more darkness filled Dick’s eyes. Disappointment. Discouragement. He finally replied quietly, “No, Dickie. You’re hot too.”

And just like that, Dick was smiling again. “Damn straight.”

~~~

Dick woke up the following more, alone and in his bed. He was still wearing the clothes from the night before although now they carried with them the scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Dick wondered if Jason had stayed long enough to smoke or if his clothes had just picked up the scent from the bar.

The next time he saw Jason, he didn’t mention his drunken declaration. Jason didn’t mention it either.

Two weeks after Jason must have tucked Dick into bed, Dick showed up at the younger man’s safe house. Jason answered the door with a questioning eyebrow but stepped aside at the smell of Chinese wafting from the bags in Dick’s hands. Jason tries to act like this isn’t unusual, like Dick shows up at his safe houses – supposedly _off the grid_ safe houses – all the time.

Jason was pretty sure this was Timbo’s fault. Dick pulled out several Styrofoam containers and sets them on the table. Maybe Jason can forgive the Replacement this once.

“Why don’t you pick the movie and I’ll grab the beers?” Dick asked.

Jason crossed his arms over his chest. “Grab my beers from my fridge, you mean.”

Dick walked past, patting Jason’s cheek, and into the kitchen.

Jason reached up, touching his cheek where Dick’s hand had been, and then shook his head to pick out a movie.

They kept the drinking to a minimum and Dick was grateful when Jason didn’t say anything about that. Like he understood Dick’s embarrassment for saying something while drunk. Dick figured there was a story to that and he was disappointed with the knowledge he didn’t know it.

He should have been there for Jason.

Dick kicked his feet up onto Jason’s lap. The man’s first urge was to shove them off but he didn’t. Stupid. Especially when Dick smiled without looking at him. Sure, it might be something happening in the movie but Jason knew it wasn’t.

Fucking Dick.

“Stop that,” Jason said.

Dick looked over, eyebrows rising on his forehead. “Stop what?”

“You know what,” Jason said.

“I do not know what. I’m not a mind reader, Little Wing,” Dick said, but there was mischief in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong so I can’t stop doing it.”

“What are you, twelve?” Jason asked.

“On a scale of one to ten,” Dick replied, just as easily.

Jason snorted, more of a huff of air but the amusement was there. “Who told you that?”

“What?”

“You’re not that clever,” Jason said, shooting him a look before returning his attention back to the TV.

Dick grinned wider and admitted, “Internet.”

Jason couldn’t stop himself from the way the corners of his lips quirked. Another soft huff and then a small chuckle, joined after a moment by Dick’s hearty laugh.

Jason didn’t tell him to stop after that, and he still let Dick keep his feet on his lap.

~~~

“Dick, I don’t want to do this,” Jason said. He watched Dick mess with his tie, finally sighing and taking pity on the fucking Golden Boy as he stood behind him and fixed it for the disaster. His fingers slid smoothly, practiced as he did it. “You and Tim are one thing but Bruce? Damian?”

“Alfred will be there too,” Dick said.

Jason yanked on the tie, irritated, so Dick made a gagging noise and quickly pulled it down to give him room. “You told me to come over for dinner. I figured it was going to be you and me with a movie and Thai food, not Sunday dinner with Daddy dearest.”

Dick turned, tie fixed finally, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought things were getting better.”

“They’re getting better with _you_ ,” Jason said.

“What’s to say they can’t get better with Bruce too?” Dick asked. He couldn’t understand Jason’s refusal to try. This whole dinner had been Bruce’s idea, couldn’t Jason see that he was trying to mend bridges? Couldn’t Jason take the steps to meet him halfway?

“The clown running around Gotham says so,” Jason said, bitterness coloring his tone.

Dick’s expression softened. “I can’t make you go. But I want you to go.”

“That’s a low blow, Dickie,” Jason said.

“Is it working?” Dick asked, not even trying to deny.

Jason’s jaw was clenched. He turned on his heel and Dick thought he’d messed up, drawn the line in the sand, as the man grabbed his leather jacket and stalked towards the door. He stopped in the doorway, looking back at Dick. “Well? Are we going or not?”

Dick didn’t know what his surprised smile did to Jason, who knew tonight was going to be painful and was going to go anyways.

~~~

It was about six months after the night at the bar that Jason came to a realization.

He and Dick might have been dating.

They were going to the zoo, the _fucking zoo_ , and Dick was walking around with Damian who looked infinitely less impressed with the elephant than Dick did. And Jason was walking behind them carrying Dick’s drink with a backpack of supplies over his shoulder wondering how he’d gotten roped into this mess.

“Grayson, I have seen an elephant before. You forced me into your circus to see Zitka two weeks ago,” Damian said.

Jason had been there for that too. Damian hadn’t been nearly as indifferent about it then as he was pretending to be now. The little brat liked this, even _this_ , even if he pretended he didn’t. Good thing for Dick that the man knew it just as well as Jason did. Jason wasn’t sure Dick’s self-confidence could take all the hits Damian dealt it otherwise.

“All kids get like that at that age.” Jason turned to a woman with an almost cliché soccer mom haircut and a pair of sunglasses pushed up onto her head. There was a smear of sunscreen on her cheek.

“What?” he asked.

“Your son,” she said, pointing towards Damian and Dick over at the gate by the elephants. “Kids his age, they start pretending not to care about things. I blame the TV on that.”

Of course she did. Jason could almost hear the PTA speech she had prepared on the horrors of television. “He’s not my son.”

“Oh, I just assumed,” she said. “Your boyfriend’s son then.”

“My what?” Jason asked.

The woman seemed remarkably confused. Jason could relate.

“You and the man over there,” she said.

Jason looked back at Dick who was hugging Damian, of course he was, and then back to the woman. Then back to Dick and the laughter he could hear coming from over by the fence. “What makes you think we’re dating?”

“The way you were looking at him,” she said. “I’m…sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jason said.

“Jay! Come here!” Dick called.

The woman walked away. Jason frowned, deeply, and then walked over to Dick and Damian.

~~~

“Is something bothering you?” Dick asked.

Dick was at Jason’s safe house again. Jason should stop calling it a safe house. At this point, he was almost always there to keep Dick from having to play a guessing game trying to figure out which safe house to go to. It was his apartment. He was setting up roots.

“No,” Jason said.

Dick was sitting at the dining room table, feet propped up on one of the other chairs. Jason was cooking. Alfredo. One of Dick’s favorites. The man was surprisingly silent. “Are you sure?”

Jason lifted the pan off the stove and poured the noodles into the strainer. He watched cloudy water drip from the noodles and drain down his sink. “No.”

Dick was silent again, like he was waiting for an explanation. He must have realize he wasn’t going to get one without prompting when Jason turned and poured the noodles back into the pan, moving it to a cold burner while he finished the sauce and the chicken. “If something’s bothering you, maybe I can help.”

“Are we dating?” Jason asked abruptly. Silence. Nothing. Jason felt embarrassment climb up his neck and cheeks as a flush of warmth. “Never mind.”

“I…” Dick trailed off and that only made Jason feel even more stupid.

“Just forget I said anything. It was stupid,” Jason said.

The chair creaked as Dick stood and Jason tensed when he felt the man’s hand on his shoulder. Dick turned him and Jason went with it, glancing at the noodles and chicken and sauce that would do just fine on its own for now. Too bad, Jason would have liked an excuse not to look into those earnest blue eyes of Dick’s. “Why?”

Could Dick drive the knife in any harder? This shouldn’t hurt. Jason hadn’t even thought about it until the zoo. He shrugged. “I don’t know. There was this woman at the zoo-“

“We went to the zoo four days ago,” Dick said.

“Yeah, so?” Jason asked.

Dick seemed flabbergasted. “You’re waiting to bring this up now?”

“I was thinking about it,” Jason said defensively. “There was this woman and she thought we were dating. That Damian was ours and I guess I hadn’t thought about it. But you’re always here or I’m at your place. You have a toothbrush in my bathroom. I went to dinner at the Manor. Your ex-girlfriend calls me.”

“Babs calls you?” Dick asked.

“Are we dating?” Jason demanded again.

Dick turned off the stove and then asked softly, “Do you want to be?”

What kind of question was that? “But…”

“Do you want to go on a date, Jason?” Dick said, before Jason could take that sentence any further.

Jason thought about the movie night a month ago, where they’d gone _out_ to the movies instead of watching one back here. And the trip to see the Gotham Knights, sharing a funnel cake and taking turns buying the beer. The zoo trip with Damian and the sudden uptake in partnered patrols.

The kneejerk reaction to say no wasn’t as strong as Jason thought it would be.

_“You turned hot, Little Wing.”_

_Dick walked past, patting Jason’s cheek, and into the kitchen._

_“I can’t make you go. But I want you to go.”_

_“What makes you think we’re dating?” “The way you were looking at him.”_

“Yes,” Jason said, something heavy lifting off his chest.

Dick gave him a half smile, reached over and picked a piece of broccoli out of the pan. “Then we’re dating.”

“Just like that?”

Dick took his seat at the table again. “Just like that.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that most updates will not be within two days. You may thank KaRaEa for the quick update thanks to her nagging and pleading.

**Gotham: Now**

Dick kissed like he did everything else. Perfectly. It shouldn’t have surprised Jason. The Golden Boy could do no wrong, after all. Why wouldn’t that be perfect too? But it didn’t stop Jason from being amazed every time Dick pressed firm, smooth lips against his own. It didn’t stop him from parting under those lips, letting Dick slide their tongues together and then separate just to crash them together again and take Jason’s breath away just as effectively as he did the first time.

Dick was straddling Jason’s lap, hands cupping Jason’s cheeks, and Jason never wanted the moment to end.

Part of Jason didn’t think he’d ever be able to blend the images in his head together. A million memories of Bruce’s perfect son, the brother he could never live up to, with the funny, amazing, perfect man sitting on his lap.

Dick’s being perfect didn’t bother Jason so much anymore. Just left him with a fear that one day Dick would realize he could do better.

“Tonight?” Dick asked, lips against Jason’s neck now and teeth worrying little marks into his skin.

“Not tonight,” Jason said.

He could feel the disappointment in Dick’s body, the way his shoulders fell and the breath against his skin. A huff, maybe. A sigh. “Okay, Little Wing.”

Tonight wasn’t right. None of the nights had been right. Jason sometimes thought it would never be right and he hated himself every time he thought that. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t sleep with Dick? The man had shown remarkable flexibility, and Jason didn’t just mean physically. He had no qualms about bottoming for Jason, no qualms about topping him either. No preference on where or how or anything. Just wanted it to mean something. That might have been the problem.

There was so much pressure to make this perfect.

“We can…” Jason trailed off, leaning his head back against the back of the couch as Dick sucked and bit on his neck. “We can do it.”

“No,” Dick said, pulling away long enough to speak. “If you’re not ready, you’re not ready.”

Perfect. Jason hesitated and then nodded, closing the distance between them to lock their lips together once more. He knew Dick was a… sexual being, for lack of a better term. It meant something, a lot, for Dick to not pressure him.

He wondered if that would sound even more ridiculous out loud than in his head, like some kind of high school girl holding out on her boyfriend.

“Don’t overthink it, Jason.” Dick mumbled the words against Jason’s lips. “It’s not a big deal.”

He sounded like he was telling the truth, and Dick was a terrible liar. Jason lifted Dick up and twisted, laying Dick back on the couch length wise and covering him with his own body. Maybe Jason wasn’t ready to make sex a part of their relationship yet, but he had no problem making out with his boyfriend on the couch.

~~~

“Is this really something you need advice from me on?” Roy asked. “Wouldn’t Kori make more sense?”

“You think I’m going to ask Kori about sex with her ex?” Jason asked. He slugged Roy in the arm, not pulling any of the force. “You’re dumber than you look. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

“Well, I never slept with him,” Roy said. “What kind of information do you think I’m going to have?”

Jason shrugged, reaching into the refrigerator and tossing Roy a bottle of water before grabbing one for himself. “You were best friends.”

“A long time ago,” Roy said.

“Not that long ago,” Jason replied. “Just tell me what you know.”

Roy shrugged. “Dick has sex. Dick used to have a lot of sex. He didn’t have sex with me and he didn’t have sex with other people he didn’t care about.”

“Yeah, I know. The nymphomaniac rabbit on Viagra wants to make an honest woman out of me,” Jason said.

Roy smirked. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Do you think he’s serious, about being okay with me wanting to wait?” Jason asked.

Roy groaned, pressing the water bottle against his forehead like Jason was spawning a migraine there. “I don’t care.”

“Roy, please,” Jason said.

The redhead sighed and shrugged. A brief pause and then he nodded, “Yeah, I think he’s serious.”

~~~

Jason was seated on the patio. Dick and Tim were running around the endless acres of yard with a football and normally Jason would have joined them but a sprained ankle from patrol three nights ago had him benched from that game at least. He had a glass of lemonade at his left. His comment about needing something stronger to be here had gone mostly ignored by Alfred so Jason had pretty much resigned himself to settling for Alfred’s homemade lemonade.

Not that hard to settle for. Like gold in a cup, really.

Metal grated loudly against the cement patio as Damian dragged a chair over from the table to Jason’s side. The man arched an eyebrow as Damian climbed into the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Can I help you, Baby Bat?”

“I detest that nickname,” Damian growled.

That’s why Jason used it. “My sincerest apologies.”

“You’re not remorseful,” Damian said.

Not really, no. “Can I help you?” Jason repeated again.

Damian didn’t say anything but Jason could see that Damian wanted to. The boy’s eyes were facing forward and Jason might have thought the boy was ignoring him, except for the way those blue eyes snapped about with motion. He wasn’t ignoring Jason, he was watching Dick play with Tim. And suddenly Jason knew exactly what this was about. “Grayson told me about your and his relationship.”

Damian said relationship like it was burning a hole in his tongue. Jason didn’t take his eyes off the little boy, the tense way he held himself. “He said he was planning to.”

“I don’t like it,” Damian said.

Jason wasn’t surprised by that. He _was_ surprised that it stung a little. Like Damian didn’t think Jason was good enough for Dick which, he was loathe to admit, hit closer to his own insecurities than he would have liked. “Well, Dick _does_ like it. Until he doesn’t, I don’t plan on putting an end to it.”

Damian’s eyes flashed, jaw clenching. He scuffed his shoe against the patio and Jason marveled that Dick was the only person who could bring such childish vulnerabilities out of him. “I know.” There was a pause. “Good.”

Now Jason was really surprised. “Good?”

“That is what I said, Todd,” Damian said, tone sharp as a knife. “Good. You, despite all logic and common sense, make Grayson happy. I do not wish to see that happiness taken from him.”

“Really?” Jason was floored.

“Yes, _really_ , Todd,” Damian snapped. He sneered. “But if you hurt him, let me assure you that I will destroy you in every way possible. Father’s code, Grayson’s morals… they will hold no sway over my decisions.”

It was almost touching. Damian reminded Jason of a cactus usually. Prickly and untouchable, angry looking and more likely to tear into you than anything else. He still reminded Jason of a cactus with his crossed arms and spitfire in his eyes but a baby cactus. Almost cute. Jason smiled. “Duly noted.”

Damian turned, blue eyes flicking over his face and then nodded. “And another thing-“

Of course.

“-do not think that you will monopolize Grayson’s time,” Damian said. “His family deserves time too. Do not think that just because you don’t like us, you can keep him from us.”

Jason frowned. Is that what Damian thought of him? That he’d keep Dick away from the others? Well, Bruce if Jason thought he could get away with it and only because Jason thought some time away from the patriarch would do some good for Dick. “I’m not going to keep him from you. I haven’t yet, have I?”

“No,” Damian admitted. But it was clearly still bothering him.

“There you go,” Jason said. “He’s not going to abandon you just because of me.”

Damian’s shoulders went back, defenses sliding in like well-fitting armor. “Of course he won’t abandon me. I’m the superior choice compared to you.”

Right. Jason sighed. “Baby Bat, Dickie cares about you, despite all logic and common sense. You’re his family.”

“So are you,” Damian mumbled. In a way that made Jason think that Dick had used that as reasoning during his explanation. That Jason was family too. And Jason, who shared a thought process more similar to Damian’s than he’d have cared to admit, could follow the line of thinking. If Jason and Damian were both family, and now Jason was also more than family, maybe Dick would start to care more about Jason than Damian.

But Dick was better than that.

“Trust me,” Jason said. “Dickie will always care about you.”

“Tt,” Damian replied. Then he was back on his feet and calling that damn dog, Titus, before disappearing back into the house.

**Gotham: Eleven Years Earlier**

It was two weeks before Dick saw her again. He could have gone two years, two decades. He knew it was a mistake the next morning, but one of those mistakes he would have to live with. No way to take back the night.

At least he didn’t make it worse by replaying it in the shower.

She was with Bruce, big surprise, and Dick wondered if he should say anything. Talia, with her wide brown eyes and parted lips, looked like she was wondering if he was going to say something too. He looked over her neck since the dress had a rather plunging neckline and the bitterness that rose at the sight of the smooth skin should have clued him in to just how not over his mistake he was. “You look nice, Talia.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Dick, I’m glad you could make it,” Bruce said.

The younger man wasn’t even sure why he’d come out here to the Wayne Foundation Charity Gala, home to the endless parade of fancily dressed Gotham elite. Dick suddenly missed his tiny 500 square foot apartment in Blüdhaven and the right to lounge in his sweat pants when he wasn’t at work. “Yeah, well, you said it was important I make an appearance.”

Keep up the image of the happy Bruce Wayne and family.

“I told them to put you down for a plus one if you were interested,” Bruce said.

Dick couldn’t help the way his eyes slid to Talia when Bruce got momentarily “distracted” by a waiter with a tray of flutes of champagne. He brought them right back to Bruce, however, before the man noticed his lapse. “I wasn’t interested.”

“I was… sorry, to hear about you and Koriand’r,” Bruce said softly. Only because the paparazzi were momentarily away, because the music would keep his voice unheard by anyone but the three of them.

Bruce wasn’t upset. Bruce had never been a big fan of Koriand’r. He’d have preferred Barbara any day of the week. Well, Dick had managed to mess up both of those relationships so it really didn’t matter. “It’s fine.”

Dick could tell Bruce was uncomfortable. Talia was doing a much better job of acting unfazed. “Bruce has neglected his duties on the dance floor, Richard. Would you care to ask me to dance?”

Dick smiled, all teeth, because it was funny and the surprised look on Bruce’s face was pretty damn funny too. “Sure, Talia. May I have this dance?”

“I would be delighted,” Talia replied, taking his offered hand and letting Dick lead her out onto the dance floor.

Dick took her hand and set the other on her hip. It wasn’t hard to make the leap from that to the memory of his hands wrapped around her hips as he fucked her on the roof of the courthouse. Her hand settled on his shoulder. “Are you planning on telling him?”

“You don’t want me to.” It wasn’t a question.

“It would only cause unnecessary problems,” Talia said.

Dick smiled, amused. “Problems for you, not for me.”

Talia’s hand tightened on his shoulder, firm without being painful. “Problems for everyone including you.”

“Sounds like you regret it,” Dick said.

“I do,” she replied.

Dick couldn’t fault her. It wasn’t exactly his highest moment either. “Can’t take it back, though.”

“No,” Talia said. “But it won’t happen again.”

“I never expected it to.” Dick’s eyes went to her neck again where two weeks ago there had been obvious bite marks and now, he couldn’t even distinguish the faintest discoloration. “Did he see them?”

“No,” she said.

He huffed. “No question to why you disappeared for two weeks?”

“He’s used to me disappearing for times, usually without reasons. And he’s not foolish enough to ask a question he doesn’t want the answer to,” Talia said.

Of course not. Bruce was so determined, so furiously in search for the truth, except when Talia al Ghul was involved and Bruce found his heart too involved not to put first. It’s why Dick had never trusted her.

Right up until he slept with her.

“He’d never forgive you,” Talia said. Dick’s jaw clenched but she just pushed on. “And not because you slept with me, but because you proved everything he’s said. You let your emotions get the best of you, you’re not ready to be on your own, and you can’t put the mission first.”

Dick’s eyes nearly glowed with his anger. Bruce had talked about him to her, he had to have. She was good at reading people but she couldn’t be that good. “That’s none of your business.”

“Only the part where you tell the love of my life that you betrayed his trust and slept with me,” Talia said.

“It wasn’t like I forced you. You were clearly offering,” Dick said.

Talia arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Do you think that will matter?”

No, he didn’t. Bruce didn’t trust people, not easily. Everyone who ever won the honor had to fight tooth and nail to get it, even harder to keep it. And Dick… when the nights were long and the day at work had been hard and he hadn’t had an honest to God conversation without lies for weeks, Dick thought about going back. At least visiting, helping that new kid with his training and apologizing to Bruce for the things Dick had said. Forgiving Bruce for the things Bruce said whether Bruce ever apologized or not.

“We both know I’m right,” Talia said.

“You used me,” Dick muttered.

Talia didn’t say anything but the look on her face said enough. She’d never hidden the fact that she was using him, never hid that she didn’t care a lick whether his goals were reached.

He waltzed her around the room to the beat of the song, leading her around until he’d led them right back over to Bruce. Dick stepped away. “Thank you for the dance, Talia.”

“Of course, Richard. Now, Beloved, will you dance with me?” she asked.

Dick watched Bruce take her hand and walk her out to the dance floor. He waited only a moment and then disappeared from the ballroom.

**Gotham: Now**

“Tonight,” Jason said. Roughly three weeks after Damian warned him, one month after Dick and he had started dating, and seven months since the night in the bar, Jason was pulling his coat off in Dick’s living room and hanging it on the hooks by the door. He kicked off his boots and padded across the carpet, wrapping his arms around Dick and pressing a kiss to his boyfriend’s lips.

Dick met the kiss but kept it chaste and then pulled back to read Jason’s face. “Tonight?”

“Tonight,” Jason repeated.

“What changed?” Dick asked.

“I don’t know,” Jason said, even if that was a lie.

Dick seemed to sense that. “Really, Jason. What changed?”

Jason rubbed his hands up and down Dick’s sides, smirking when the man twitched from ticklishness. “I guess I just kept expecting the other shoe to drop.”

“I’m almost flattered. That implies that you think this is too good to be true,” Dick said. He wore that grin, _that_ grin, that stupid cocky grin that Jason loved.

Jason slid his hands down to rest on Dick’s hips, squeezing gently. “Trust is hard for me, Dickie. And this _is_ too good to be true. You wanting me, me wanting you. Even… Hell, even Bruce isn’t as awful about this as I thought he would be.”

There had been bumps but small.

“This is perfect,” Jason said. “I just kept expecting it to blow up in our faces.”

Dick’s grin softened and he cupped Jason’s cheek. “Things are allowed to be good.”

“I know,” Jason said. Now, at least. “Tonight.”

Another small smile, this one less cocky. A warm, genuine smile that was contagious enough to have Jason copying it. “Tonight.”

“Do you want to eat first?” Jason asked.

Dick’s eyes flashed with something and he pulled Jason gently back towards the bedroom. “Not really.”

Jason stumbled with the force of Dick pulling him away from the center of the living room, not even getting the door closed all the way before Dick was reaching for the hem of his t-shirt. Jason snorted and grabbed Dick’s wrists. “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Its absence,” Dick said, tipping forward to catch Jason’s lips with his own.

“I was making a joke,” Jason said.

Dick tugged on Jason’s shirt again. Jason let him this time and helped pull the shirt free of his shoulders. There was a pause and then Jason was pressed against the door, shoulders bumping into the wood as Dick attacked his mouth.

“Down, boy,” Jason mocked, when Dick pulled away.

“I’ve been imagining this for months,” Dick said in explanation.

Jason paused. “We’ve only been together for one.”

Dick pulled his own shirt off, revealing every inch of naturally tan muscle. “So?”

Jason was speechless for a moment and then he snorted. Dick had been fantasizing about sex with him, before they’d even agreed to be together. There was something almost flattering about that and Jason felt a small bit of pride at the thought. He kissed Dick again, closed mouth and brief, before he disentangled Dick’s hands from around him. Dick, in turn, linked their hands together and walked them back over to the bed. Jason hit the bed, falling back and then scooting back until he hit the pillows at the top. Dick followed behind him, kneeling between his legs, and then bent over to kiss Jason again and slide his fingers over Jason’s abdomen.

The scars were sensitive, or at least the spaces around them, and Dick clearly knew that. Maybe from his own experience. His fingers grazed over the smooth spots and traced around pale white and rigid skin, all while urging Jason’s mouth open with his own.

“Dick,” Jason muttered and then followed the other man’s mouth to bite down on his bottom lip. He could feel Dick pulling on his jeans, the yank of the button before it pulled through, and he could hear the zipper as Dick pulled it down. Neither were enough of a buildup to prepare him before there was a hand cupping him through his boxer briefs and rubbing just hard enough to make Jason’s hips jump in surprise.

Dick kissed him again. Jason was starting to tell that was going to be Dick’s thing. It shouldn’t have surprised him. Dick was a ball of emotions. Too many emotions. And being part of the Bruce Wayne School for Never Talking About Anything meant that Dick grew up not knowing the first thing about how to express his emotions just like the rest of Bruce’s child soldiers. He’d found a way, which was Jason’s theory for Dick’s obsession with the tactile sensation, anyways.

Either way, it wasn’t like Jason was going to complain about Dick kissing him.

Dick’s rubbing got a little more insistent and Jason’s hips jerked up again. A clear sign that they need to get this moving. Just because Jason had been the one holding out didn’t change the fact that Dick wasn’t the only one who’d been suffering from the dry spell. Neither of them were likely going to last very long, but that would be okay.

It just meant Jason could save dragging it out, watching Dick fall apart underneath him, until later.

“Dick, move along,” Jason said.

Dick smirked. “Eager?”

“Impatient,” Jason corrected. As soon as Dick got his hand out of Jason’s pants, and he missed the friction immediately after, Jason shifted to pull his jeans down his hips and then off his legs. He didn’t give Dick the chance to strip him any farther before he was working on evening out the playing field. Not too long and Dick was naked and still kneeling between Jason’s legs, fingers peeling boxer briefs down Jason’s thighs until his growing erection was freed.

Jason saw what was coming but it still brought a moan out of him the moment Dick wrapped his lips around the tip. Just a few licks, Dick sucking him down a few inches to finish bringing him to full erection, and then Dick pulled off with a pop and reached over into the drawer. A condom, lube. He ripped open the package with his teeth and slid it on. Jason sat up, a little more hesitation. “Dick-“

“What’s wrong?” Dick asked.

It was relieving to know that Dick just knew, that by the tone in his voice Dick knew to slow down and take an assessment. A benefit of doing this with someone he’d known for a long time, of someone who cared, of someone like them who could listen, _really_ listen, even now. “I don’t know if I can…”

There was a flash in his eyes, like maybe Dick thought he meant everything. Jason believed in the concept of consent, fully and completely, but he wasn’t going to cut Dick off after he’d given him the greenlight this far. He took Dick’s cock in his hand and watched that disappointment transition fully into arousal once more. “Jason…”

“Dick,” Jason said. “I mean bottoming. I don’t know if I can…”

Dick blinked and some of that arousal faded, understanding finally kicking in. “Never bottomed?”

No, Jason had bottomed plenty. That wasn’t the problem. He shook his head. “It’s not that, Dickie.”

There was something about bottoming that left Jason feeling incredibly vulnerable and vulnerable was not exactly a feeling that Jason wanted to be feeling a lot of.

Dick didn’t even hesitate. “I can bottom, Jay.”

Jason didn’t want that either, didn’t want to put Dick out for his own insecurities. It was his fault they’d waited this long. He moved his hand from Dick’s cock to his wrist and rubbed gently over the pulse there. “I trust you.”

“I know you do,” Dick said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to do this.”

Jason used the hand around Dick’s wrist to pull the man closer, kissing him gently. “I trust you. Just _tell me_ I can trust you.”

Baby blue eyes tried to get a read off Jason before Dick nodded. “You can trust me, Jason.”

Jason felt something in him relax at that. He _did_ trust Dick. If Dick had pressured him, Jason would have clammed up and Jason knew Dick knew that. He knew Dick was doing everything in his power to keep Jason comfortable. Because that was the kind of guy Dick was. “I know.”

His fingers uncurled from around Dick’s wrist and, after a brief pause, Dick went back to the bottle of lube. He slicked his fingers and used his free hand to stroke Jason, keeping him relaxed as he pressed his finger into him. It burned, always did. Jason didn’t bottom often enough for it to be comfortable. But Dick was gentle, pressing in slowly and making sure to watch Jason’s breathing to only press in on every exhale.

Another finger which Jason took fine, although by the time they got to three Jason was tensing. Dick put his lips to Jason’s chest, pressing a chaste kiss against the skin, and then licked over one nipple. Jason’s lips parted until Dick did it again and then he openly gasped. His body relaxed of its own accord and Dick’s fingers eased in much smoother after that.

“I’m ready,” Jason said.

Dick pulled his fingers out. Jason could feel the remaining lube still on them as Dick pressed against his thighs to widen the space between them. Another squirt of lube into Dick’s hands and then he was wrapping his hand around himself and spreading it over the condom. There was a haze in those beautiful blue eyes of his. Jason might have been able to get off on just that, watching Dick fuck himself in his hand and that almost drugged up look in Dick’s eyes.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to, and Dick let go of himself to shift Jason’s hips up and press against his hole. He waited for Jason’s nod and then pushed in when it was given to him. Jason was just doing his best to keep himself relaxed, Dick was the one looking like ecstasy. His tongue slipped out to wet dry lips and his eyes closed, like he’d never felt anything better than Jason wrapped around him. “Perfect.”

Jason was perfect. It was the best thing to say and the worst thing to say, making Jason feel all the more vulnerable but giving him even more surety that Dick was the right person to have here and now.

Jason wouldn’t do this for anyone else.

It took some effort to get Dick inside of him. Dick wasn’t small in the least and Jason didn’t often try to shove anything in there. Eventually, Jason felt Dick’s pelvis against his ass. It was the same moment Dick let go of Jason’s thighs and rested his hands on either side of Jason’s body. Bent like that, Jason could lean up and steal a kiss.

Dick started moving while they were still kissing, fucking Jason’s mouth at the same slow tempo that he was rocking in and out of Jason’s body. That was hot as fuck and Jason was suddenly regretful he’d wasted so much time worrying if he could trust Dick.

The slow tempo gave Dick precision and it wasn’t long before his experimental thrusts finally found Jason’s prostate and Jason’s vision whited out for a moment. When he focused again, Dick was chuckling and Jason kissed him to shut him up. He pulled back and asked, “Proud of yourself?”

“Maybe,” Dick replied, voice hoarse and low.

His pace picked up but his precision stayed strong now that he knew where to hit, what angle was going to have Jason falling apart. Dick’s cock pressing against that spot every time had Jason panting early, cock leaking without even being touched, and soon rocking his hips to meet Dick’s thrusts.

“God, you feel amazing,” Dick mumbled, muffling the words against Jason’s lips with another kiss. Jason couldn’t get enough of them. “So amazing.”

Jason would have flushed at the praise if he wasn’t already flushed from arousal. He tangled his fingers into Dick’s hair and wrapped a leg around Dick to pull him closer, urge him on. “Faster, Dickie.”

The man obliged with ease. It was a mess, a disaster, a catastrophe that felt like heaven. Sloppy kisses and bites along each other’s collarbones, scratch marks and sweat slicked skin making it harder and harder to hold onto each other.

Jason had predicted right, it wouldn’t take long, and the moment Dick finally, blessedly, wrapped his hand around Jason’s cock was the moment Jason knew he was mere seconds from coming. “Dick, _fuck_ , I’m… I’m…”

Dick seemed to know, instinctually, or at least could put the pieces together from the way Jason was shaking underneath him. “Look at me.”

Jason might have snapped something about orders but he was too close not to follow the command just like that, his eyes snapped open and met Dick’s baby blue ones right as he cried out and felt his orgasm roll through him. White splattered on himself and on Dick’s stomach and hand. Dick grinned and pounded into Jason only that much harder before he slammed home and tensed. Even through the condom, Jason could feel the warmth of Dick’s release.

Dick dropped soon after that, arms and legs too tired to hold him up after he pulled out of Jason and discarded the condom to the wastebasket beside the bed. Heavy breathing filled the silence and Dick laid his head on Jason’s chest. “Perfect.”

“Yeah, you are,” Jason said.

The words brought a smile to Dick’s face and a small chuckle and Jason thought his chest warmed. That even now, Dick could laugh and smile. That Jason hopefully had a long time to look forward to a laughing Dick after every coupling.

They fell asleep like that, tangled together on Dick’s bed. Dick reached over early on and flicked off the lamp, leaving them alone in the dark room and he was asleep before Jason who stayed up an hour or two to listen to him breathing.

The alarm clock on Dick’s bedside table read two in the morning and Jason blinked his eyes, not sure why he’d woken. He sat up and reached out only to find the other side of the bed empty. Recently, he would guess, if the still warm sheets were anything to go by. He listened, waiting, but was actually clued in by his sight before anything else. The closed door to Dick’s bathroom had a thin light coming from beneath the door. Jason stood, scratching his bare stomach and walking naked across the wooden floor, pausing at the door to yawn.

“Why the hell are you calling me? How did you even get this number?” Dick asked.

Jason frowned and reached for the doorknob before stopping. Something, some instinct, keeping him from opening the door.

There was silence. “What are you talking about?”

More silence and Jason leaned closer, trying to maybe make out who the other person was on the other end of the line.

“Don’t threaten me, Talia. This isn’t my fault. I did everything to keep it a secret,” Dick said.

Talia? Jason leaned closer and the wood floor beneath him squeaked. Dick’s response was muffled. “I have to go. I’ll call you back.”

Jason took a step back but the door opened and Dick was there smiling. Behind him, his phone laid on the sink. “What’s up, Jason?”

“I saw the bathroom light on,” Jason said.

“Nature called,” Dick said. Still smiling, a little half smile.

Dick was always so good at smiling.

“Everything okay?” Jason asked.

“Of course,” Dick said. He grabbed his phone and walked into the bedroom. Jason stood there and then flicked off the light.

Dick was always so good at smiling. But he was an awful, awful liar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Gotham: Now**

Jason woke up again with Dick curled around him. He was a human octopus, arms wrapped around his chest and a bare leg tangled between Jason’s. The sheets were still half covering them from when they’d both climbed under them after Dick had left the bathroom. It felt good, warm, safe.

And all Jason could think about was the late night phone call.

He could only imagine that was why he was up now, before even Dick. Early bird Dick who couldn’t stay in and sleep if someone paid him to. The phone call fed into the worst of Jason’s paranoia. All he could do was replay Dick’s side of the conversation and question why Talia had called him over and over and over again.

“Little Wing?” Dick asked, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Jason thought he might have looked the best like this. Sleepy, with glazed eyes, and a red mark on his face where a wrinkle in the pillow had pressed into his skin. Beautiful. Of course, Jason had thought that before. That Dick was at his _most_ beautiful. Coming out the shower, drenched in sweat from a workout, flipping around the streets of Gotham with a cocky smile on his face. Dressed in a fancy tux but fumbling with the bow tie. “Little Wing, are you listening to me?”

Jason looked at him again, focusing his vision and realizing that Dick had been talking to him. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and replied, “Guess I’m still half asleep. Sorry.”

Dick frowned, hand reaching up to cup his face. “I said that you didn’t look too good. Did you sleep well?”

“Not really,” Jason admitted.

“Regrets?” Dick asked.

Maybe. “I don’t know, Dick. I enjoyed it.”

The words seemed to settle hard on Dick who moved back, grabbing one of the sheets to wrap around him as he sat up. Jason reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t seem sure,” Dick said.

Jason tried to muster up more confidence. He was a decent liar, better than Dick at any rate. “I don’t regret it.”

Dick’s eyes flickered over Jason’s face before he nodded.

“Just…” Jason trailed off but he could see that Dick was one hundred percent keyed in on what Jason was saying. “We tell each other everything, right? Like the nightmares and communicating because we both said we didn’t want this to fall apart over something like that. You don’t have anything you need to tell me right?”

It was a split second hesitation. The pause could have been as small as the chance to take a breath, except that Jason _knew_. “No, Jason. No secrets. We’re good.”

“Good,” Jason said. Why was Dick lying to him? What was happening, had happened, with Talia that Dick felt he couldn’t talk about?

No secrets. That was the rule. They didn’t hide things from each other. They didn’t lie because it only caused bigger rifts. Even Dick, Bruce’s yes man, had admitted that he didn’t want a relationship where secrets were practically the foundation.

Jason let go of Dick’s shoulder and watched Dick stand, wrapping the white sheet around his waist and walk over to his dresser to pull out clothes. He was beautiful, so beautiful.

The bed felt cold without him.

Jason left first and Dick commented again once or twice that Jason seemed out of it. Jason knew Dick was trying not to push, trying to give Jason some privacy while still making sure Jason was okay. He wasn’t okay. He kept thinking he would ask, open his mouth and spit the words out, but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Like he was scared of the answer.

Jason didn’t want to know what Dick was hiding from him.

So Jason left, knowing he was leaving Dick confused and worried, and took his bike back to his safe house. Not his apartment, a real safe house. A place where he could hide. That should have spoken wonders but Jason was doing his best to ignore it. Because the moment he really thought about it, thought about why he was here instead of the comfortable studio apartment on the other side of town with Dick’s toothbrush in his bathroom and Dick’s clothes in his closet, thought about why he couldn’t open his mouth to ask Dick to tell him just what the _hell_ was going on, was the moment he had to accept that he had fallen for Dick Grayson.

And that was a lot scarier than Jason wanted to admit to.

Jason wasn’t stupid enough to get that attached to anyone. Not someone who would hurt him. Roy, Kori, they would never hurt him. He trusted them with his life and then some. He knew he could trust them.

He’d thought he could trust Dick too.

~~~

“You have five unheard messages. First unheard message.”

“Jason, you left looking not too great. I just want to make sure you’re okay. Call me back.”

“ _Beep_. Message deleted. Next unheard message.”

“It’s Dick again, Jay. I just want to know you’re okay. You don’t even have to talk to me if you’re not ready. Just shoot me a text or something. Thanks.”

“ _Beep_. Message deleted. Next unheard message.”

“If this is about sleeping together, just tell me what went wrong. I thought you were ready. You said you were ready. If you regret it, I understand. Just please tell me you’re okay.”

“ _Beep._ Message deleted. Next unheard message.”

“Jason. Tim here. Dick called me. He’s worried about you. I don’t know what happened but if you could give one of us a head’s up, that’d be nice. Normally I wouldn’t get involved but I’m with Dick on this one. We just want to know you’re okay.”

“ _Beep_. Message deleted. Last unheard message.”

“I love you, Little Wing. I shouldn’t say that now, before ever saying it to your face, but I’m scared. You won’t pick up your phone, you won’t respond to texts, you’re not at your apartment. Roy and Kori don’t know where you’re at. Whatever I messed up, please know I love you. Give me a chance to make this right. I _love_ you.”

“Message saved. You have no more unheard messages.”

~~~

There was a knock at the door. It was Roy. Jason liked that he just knew that. That after countless hours of being around his best friend, Jason could tell it was him at his door from something as simple as a knock. Jason sighed and stood, walking over and opening the door. The redhead stood there, arms crossed over his chest, and said, “You realize I had to answer a phone call from Dickface, right? I want you to understand my pain right now.”

Jason didn’t smile and something sparked in Roy’s eyes that looked a lot like concern.

“Can I come in?” Roy asked.

Jason sighed and stepped to the side. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It was big enough that Dick called me, Jason,” Roy said. “ _Dick_ called _me._ And I got the sense that if I hadn’t finally picked up, he’d have called Kori. Do you understand how awkward it was for me to listen to Dick tell me that the two of you did the horizontal mambo? So take pity on my pain and tell me what happened?”

“He’s lying to me, Roy Toy,” Jason said softly.

Roy arched an eyebrow. “About?”

Jason closed the door. He walked into the kitchen and pulled Roy out a glass, filled it with water because Jason had some manners and doing something made talking about this easier. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Roy asked.

“I don’t know,” Jason repeated, sharper this time. “I woke up after-“

“Don’t. I got the vivid picture from Dick once,” Roy interrupted.

“After,” Jason said again. “And he was in the bathroom on the phone.”

“The vigilante got a phone call at night,” Roy said. “String him up.”

“He pretended like he hadn’t even gotten the phone call,” Jason said. “I asked him if everything was okay and he said no.”

“How do you know that everything _isn’t_ okay?” Roy asked.

“Because he was on the phone with Talia al Ghul,” Jason said.

Roy grew silent. “Talia al Ghul, the demon brat’s mom?”

“One and the same,” Jason said.

“The same wicked bitch of the west that helped put your jigsaw brain back together?” Roy asked.

“That would be her,” Jason said.

Roy was silent again. “Well, shit.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. He leaned against the counter. “Shit.”

“What did he say about it?” Roy asked.

“What did he say about what?” Jason asked.

Roy snorted. “Oh, you know, the color the two of you decided to paint the nursery. About the phone call, Jason. What the hell else would I be talking about?” Jason shrugged. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I didn’t ask him,” Jason said.

Roy dragged a hand through his hair. “Why?”

“Because I’m not sure I want to know,” Jason said.

Roy just stared at him. Green eyes flickering over Roy’s face. “Jaybird, you can’t just bottle this up.”

Jason shrugged again. “I just need some time. He’ll tell me if he wants me to know.”

“And if he doesn’t tell you?” Roy asked.

Jason averted his gaze, looking at the design on the tiles of his kitchen floor. “I can live with that.”

“Bullshit,” Roy said. “Don’t let Dick do this.”

“Do what?” Jason asked.

“Be fucking Bruce Wayne,” Roy said. “Don’t let him keep things from you and make _you_ feel bad about it because _he_ is hiding secrets.”

“I love him, Roy,” Jason said. Okay, so he yelled it. “I love him and I don’t… I don’t care what he’s lying to me about.”

“I know you love him, Jason,” Roy said.

Jason’s head snapped back up to meet Roy’s gaze. “You what?”

“I know,” Roy said. His eyes widened. “Oh, you might not have known but the rest of us are not nearly as blind. Hell, even Dick waited to say something because he knew your head was still shoved up your ass. But I know. So yeah, you love him but it _does_ bother you that he didn’t tell you what the phone call with Talia was about.”

It did. It did bother Jason.

He closed his eyes. “We slept together, Roy, and I’m not exactly a priest but there’s a difference between sleeping with someone and sleeping with him. I thought I could trust him.”

“Then go talk to him,” Roy said. “But you’re not going to get any answers talking to me.”

“I might,” Jason said, petulance in his tone.

“Go talk to him,” Roy said again.

Jason clenched his jaw, still clearly struggling with the idea, and then nodded once.

**~~~**

On the other side of the city, Damian watched Grayson and Father. They spoke to each other on the far side of the Cave, the two of them making a point in stepping away from Damian before they had begun their private conversation. It wasn’t hard to figure out that if he tried to move closer they would clam up like oysters at the bottom of the ocean. And Grayson had clearly remembered Damian’s talent for reading lips since they were faced mostly away making the whole attempt impossible.

Not that Damian didn’t attempt anyways.

“Tt,” he said to no one, and no one responded.

He was still wearing his Robin uniform, hood pulled up so that it hung over his forehead, and he was sunk down low in the big chair. Father was in the uniform as well since they’d both been about to leave for patrol but Grayson was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Grayson had vowed to meet up with them tonight, clearly he had no such plans, and the knowledge left him with a cold feeling of disappointment in his chest.

A growl came from a motorcycle, the noise echoing of the stone walls, before Drake came into view. The cold feeling was replaced by irritation.

Drake dismounted his vehicle and walked over to the chair to stand beside Damian. “Demon Brat.”

“Plebian,” Damian muttered.

“What are they talking about?” Drake leaned against the chair.

Damian kicked the floor to move it out from under his arm and smirked when Drake stumbled. “I don’t know. Grayson showed up looking like a disaster. Or, at least, more of one than he usually does. He’s stepped away to make two phone calls.”

“It’s probably about Jason,” Drake said with a sigh.

Damian’s eyes flickered up. “What?”

Drake arched an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

Damian’s lip curled up in a sneer. “Tell me what I need to know before I decide that you are wasting more of my time than you are worth. I can find out for myself.”

“Dick and Jason had a falling out, I guess. Jason’s off the map and Dick is really worried about him,” Drake said.

Grayson looked over at the two of them, glancing at Drake and then settling on Damian once more. He’d looked at Damian several times since he’d gotten here. It reminded Damian of the conversation Father and Grayson had before Grayson had given the cowl up once more. What new bad news were they going to drop on him now?

“I warned Todd not to hurt him,” Damian said darkly.

Drake crossed his arms over his chest. “Who said Jason did the hurting, twerp?”

“Grayson wouldn’t hurt him. He’s too good for that,” Damian said.

Drake glanced at Damian and Damian fought the urge to shift under his gaze. “He’s not perfect, you know.”

“I know,” Damian said.

“He makes mistakes just like the rest of us,” Drake said.

Damian’s eyes snapped to Drake. “I _know_.”

“And Dick has a particular ability to mess up his romantic relationships. He’s commitment shy and he puts the mission first. He’s a lot like Bruce in that way,” Drake said.

Damian scowled. “Do you have anything to add that I don’t know already?”

“I don’t understand how you can be this horrible little monster to everyone else and when it comes to Dick, you think the sun shines out of his-“ Drake started.

Damian cut him off. “There is a difference between believing that Grayson is perfect and believing that he is good. He is too good to hurt Todd because he will hurt him the way he hurts everyone else. By being there for someone else when they need him more. Grayson will put someone else first and right now, he has no one to put first but Todd.”

Drake’s jaw clenched, Damian could see the tick out of the corner of his eye. That was a low blow to the third Robin but it was also the honest truth. Damian turned his eyes back to Grayson and Father, continuing to watch them having their conversation. Precious silence before Drake had to ruin that too. “How long have they been talking like this?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Damian said.

More silence and then, “Can’t be anything good.”

**Nanda Parbat: Eleven Years Earlier**

The fetus didn’t look like much at the time. A little blob of cells no bigger than a bean. Hardly something she expected to be a great leader one day. By no means did Talia not understand the concept of pregnancy, growth, reproduction, but it was hard to look at the small creature in the artificial womb and think of it as her son or daughter to be.

The DNA was drawn from the umbilical cord. Talia wasn’t required to be here for the test. It was more of a formality than anything. With the DNA drawn, the scientist took the samples and walked them over to the testing equipment. Talia watched with eagle eyes. A serious of tests to determine gender, potential genetic disorders, and the like.

“Madame al Ghul, these tests can take time. If you would like, we could always bring you the results.” One scientist. Talia didn’t know his name.

She turned hard eyes to him. “I will be present for the duration of the testing.”

Hesitation shown on his features before he replied, “Of course, ma’am.”

The scientist wasn’t wrong. Testing was a tedious process and information took time to come back. Talia barely noticed the passage of time, however, with her hand against the glass of the womb. It was warm to the touch which matched the glowing pink color of the embryonic fluid.

Talia, indeed, didn’t even notice when the information _did_ come back. A flutter of motion out of the corner of her eyes was the only clue to anything at all. She dropped her hand and looked at the scientists, one of whom had begun to run the information again. “What?”

“We may have experienced a glitch with the equipment, ma’am.”

“What happened?” she demanded.

The scientist handed her the paper.

A son. She was having a son. Talia took note of that information first. An image flashed before her of a little boy with her Beloved’s beautiful blue eyes combined with her own rich coloring. She smiled before she could help herself and then forced herself to keep looking, to single out the so-called glitch.

The paternity test was a failure.

“Paternity test?” Talia looked up.

The scientist’s eyes filled with wariness. “Your father instructed us to run everything. The Bat’s DNA was here…”

“What do you mean it failed?” Talia demanded, voice raising and making the scientist take a step back.

“It’s a glitch, ma’am,” he said hurriedly. “Nothing more.”

But within minutes, one test being much quicker to run than hundreds, the paper was back and Talia tore it from the scientist’s hands. Another failure.

But likely, not another glitch.

Talia screamed, rage filled and angry. She crumpled the paper up in her hands.

The scientist by the printer spoke quietly. “The Demon Head will have to be informed.”

Something selfish and cold filled Talia’s chest, fear, and she reached out and grabbed the skittish scientist before her. A snap filled the room as her hands snapped his neck and he dropped to the floor in a heap. The others froze and Talia glared at them. “Destroy all the evidence.”

“But-“

“Destroy it all! Now!” Talia exclaimed. “Father will never know, do you understand me? This secret begins and ends here. Change the information, change the computers, fix this or I will stain the halls of the palace with your blood. He tried to hurt the baby. Repeat that story and nothing else, and he will be the last one to die.”

No one moved, not even a blink.

“Now!” she yelled.

**Gotham: Now**

Jason had a key and an open invitation to walk into Dick’s apartment at any time. After all, he’d been spending half his time there. At least half. Most. Sex might have come late but Jason had long since started spending nights here and Dick had spent his share of nights at Jason’s apartment. But despite all of that, Jason still hesitated outside the apartment door. Wondering if he should knock, if this whole thing had ruined something as simply amazing as Jason’s ability to walk into Dick’s apartment unannounced.

His fingers wrapped around the cool metal of the doorknob.

Jason loved Dick. He loved him with every part of his being. He loved him for his strengths and his weaknesses, his highs and his lows, his best and his worst. He loved Dick because there had been no one else that believed in him, because there was no one else as good as him. Jason really and truly believed that. Dick might have been the best person he knew. Not perfect, but still good. And good wasn’t something that Jason had run into very often in his life.

He pushed open the door.

Jason had known that Dick would be home, the motorcycle back in the parking lot, but the living room was empty. He closed the door behind him and got as far as opening his mouth to call out to Dick when the words died in his throat.

“I came to talk.” Jason recognized that voice. It was hard not to. Coming back to life, Jason didn’t have a whole lot of memories in regards to that. Some nightmares about crawling out of his grave but with all the brain damage, he’d barely been conscious. The real memories came from after being healed in the Pit. The voice, a woman’s voice, _Talia’s_ voice.

And then Dick. “You broke into my apartment. Jason could have been here. How would you have explained that?”

“Jason Todd?” Talia asked, her voice too casual.

Clearly Dick could pick up the tone as well. “Yes, Jason Todd.”

“And what would the Red Hood be doing in your apartment?” Talia asked.

Dick scoffed. “I don’t think that’s any of your business. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I needed to be here. We need to talk face to face,” Talia said.

Jason approached the archway of the kitchen slowly, more careful about where he was stepping since the night before. He didn’t want to alert them before he knew what was going on. Maybe he should have said something, confronted them, but Jason didn’t know if he could have Dick look him in the eye and lie to him again.

“Did you talk to Bruce?” Talia asked.

“Of course,” Dick said.

“Of course,” she repeated. Jason could hear her smile in her voice. “You’re still his.”

“Talia,” Dick said warningly.

Heels against kitchen tile. “He knows.”

“That’s what you said on the phone,” Dick said.

“Well, I’m saying it again now. He knows and everything we’ve done…it’s pointless,” Talia said.

Silence. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What you’ve always done to protect your son,” Talia said. “Anything and everything.”

Dick’s son?

Jason took another step forward, paused, and then took another. He was still out of sight but his breath was hitching in his throat and Jason felt like his heart was beating loud enough that they both should have heard him. He took the last step forward, standing in the archway, but it spoke about the emotional turmoil the two were in that neither noticed him. Both were facing partially away from him, Dick with his hand in his hair and Talia with her arms crossed under her chest.

“There’s no way that we’re going to get through this without him finding out I’m his father,” Dick said. He swore, viciously. “You had one job, Talia!”

Without him finding out Dick was his father.

Like puzzle pieces, it all clicked into place. Dick’s sudden lies, the call on the phone, the person that Dick and Talia shared. Why Dick was so protective of one person, more than anyone else. Tim’s heartfelt, drunk pity parties about Dick kicking him to the curb. Another boy with the blue eyes and the dark skin. The person related to Talia. The _sole_ person that would bring Talia to Gotham, the _sole_ person that Dick would deal with Talia civilly for. The person on the patio with a dog at his side, telling Jason not to hurt Dick because Dick had cared about the little boy when no one else would. Because Dick had shown that little boy unconditional love. That little boy. Damian.

“You’re Damian’s father,” Jason said.

Dick’s head snapped up and the color drained out of his cheeks. He looked almost sickly as pale as he was getting. “Jason…”

“You’re Damian’s father,” Jason repeated.

Talia looked at him with those dark, guarded eyes. “No, Richard. I don’t believe you’ll be able to keep this a secret after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the cat is out of the bag. Let me know what you think of the reveal in the comments and don't forget to check back for Chapter Four!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't too sure about this chapter. Hope you enjoy.

**Gotham: One Year Earlier**

“This is Damian,” Talia said, hand on the shoulder of the little boy in front of her. “Damian, this is your father.”

Damian approached Bruce, stopping directly in front of him and looking up at him like the nearly two feet height difference was more like two inches. “I thought you’d be taller.”

Dick snorted, catching the glance Talia sent him and wondering at it for a moment before his attention was drawn back to Bruce. Bruce who was tense, shoulders practically cracking with the stress sitting on them. Dick could only imagine. A son.

Of course, Bruce had been jumping in and out of bed with Talia for _years_ and Dick wasn’t all that surprised. Even if Bruce had hounded him, lecture after lecture, on safe sex. Dick only wanted to laugh a little and he was impressed that he held back the urge.

“Talia,” Bruce said, darkly.

“Beloved,” she replied, voice as cold as ice.

“He can’t be mine,” Bruce said.

“Tt,” Damian said. “I clearly didn’t inherit my intelligence from the paternal side of the family. Mother just said I _was_ yours.”

Talia walked closer once more and set her hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Damian is ready to meet his father, Beloved, and he will find his father here in Gotham with you.”

Bruce’s jaw clenched. “Talia-“

“Some father you’re turning out to be,” Damian muttered. “Mother, you should just let me return home.”

“You can learn things from the Batman, Damian,” Talia said. “And he will take you with him.”

Dick hated the way she said that, with a curl of her lips because she knew that Bruce was too good a man to refuse. Bruce, despite his blindness where Talia was concerned, knew that she was hardly mothering material. Bruce wasn’t as obvious as to drop his shoulders or give any indication that he was giving in. Dick, and Talia unfortunately, knew Bruce too well not to see past it, however. “Fine.”

The boy might have carried an air of indifference about him but Dick could see the pride in his eyes, the relief. He wanted to go with his father. He was a ten year old boy and Talia may have raised him to be this… brat, but he was still a child who was meeting his father for the first time.

Jesus Christ. Bruce had a _kid_.

“Batman…” Dick trailed off, glancing at his mentor.

“Who is he?” Damian demanded.

“Nightwing,” Bruce said. “My first protégé and my adoptive son.”

Dick felt the corners of his lips turn up at the title.

Damian glared daggers at Dick who was only partially surprised. After all, he was Talia’s brat. “Mother said that _I_ am your _only_ child.”

“Truth hurts, kid,” Dick replied.

“Don’t call me kid, pretender,” Damian snarled.

Dick smirked. “Oh yeah, this is going to be great.”

~~~

“Yeah? Well, fuck you, Pennyworth,” Damian said, storming up the stairs and slamming the door shut.

Bruce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Alfred…”

“Watch the young master, sir. Yes, I know,” Alfred said. “I shall happily add watching over your indiscretion to my list of duties.”

Bruce’s head snapped up right before the door closed again. He gripped the edge of the computer desk with both hands, squeezing before pulling back and pulling the gauntlets off his hands. “I don’t know how this could have happened.”

Dick took a seat and smirked at him. “Well, Bruce. When a man and a woman love each other very much or have had too much to drink, they get together and-“

“Dick,” Bruce said, glancing at him to cut off the rant. But Dick caught the sight of a hint of a smile, which was good enough for Dick. Bruce went above and beyond though, finishing the smile for the briefest of moments before it disappeared altogether. He sighed again and Dick watched the weight of the world settle on his shoulders once more. “I never thought I’d have a son, Dick.”

“You’re a great parent, Bruce,” Dick said.

Bruce grunted his disagreement. “Yes, the three of you are sterling examples of my parenting.”

“Well, the best parts _are_ probably from Alfred,” Dick admitted with a grin.

“Not helping,” Bruce said, taking a seat in front of the computer.

Dick chuckled and stood back up, walking over and leaning on the back of Bruce’s chair. “So? It’s not like you’ve never raised a child before.”

“None of you were ever that rude and belligerent,” Bruce muttered.

Dick snorted. “Jason?”

Bruce was silent for a moment. “This one might have even Jason beat on belligerence.”

“This one’s name is Damian, Bruce,” Dick said.

“Damian,” Bruce said, so quiet that Dick was quite sure the man wasn’t talking to him. Just repeating the name of his son.

The computer made a noise, dragging both of their attentions up to it. Bruce clicked on the notification and his expression grew hard. “I should never have trusted her.”

“What?” Dick asked.

“The paternity test came back negative,” Bruce said. “Damian isn’t mine. Talia is just bringing him here to cause problems.”

“You ran a paternity test?” Dick asked.

Bruce looked up, eyebrow arched. “Of course.”

Of course.

Dick stood, taking a step away from the chair, and then looked over his shoulder at the stairs. Just moments ago, a belligerent little boy had stormed up the stairs angry that his father wasn’t giving him exactly what he wanted. An angry little boy who had looked so relieved that his father was taking him in. “I don’t think he knew.”

“Of course not,” Bruce said. “It’s Talia.”

Dick hadn’t been entirely sure that Bruce could think Talia capable of something so cruel.

“Whose son do you think he is?” Dick asked.

“That’s what I’m going to check now,” Bruce said. “We might not get any hits but Talia has interacted with a lot of criminals and our database is rather thorough.”

“You think we might get an idea of whose son he actually is?” Dick asked, stepping closer once more.

“Maybe,” Bruce said. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he instructed the computer to find matches to Damian’s DNA. “It might take a while. It runs through-“

“Match Found.” The robotic computer voice had Bruce slowly dropping back into the chair.

Dick laughed. “You’re better than you think you are.”

“It runs through Gotham first,” Bruce said, frowning. “Damian’s father is in the city.”

Which is why it should have taken awhile. The likelihood of Talia sleeping with someone else right under Bruce’s nose wasn’t exactly high.

Bruce’s fingers slipped over the keyboard again and then the comparison popped up.

Dick choked.

“Match Found. Paternal relationship established between Grayson, Richard and al Ghul, Damian. New information saved to computer.”

If Dick wasn’t trying to swallow this, he’d have seen Bruce working it out. Mentally doing the math, subtracting Damian’s age and running the dates back through his head. The same he would have done for himself when Talia first introduced the little boy to them. “Dick?”

“He’s not mine!” Dick exclaimed.

Bruce turned in the chair. “Dick.”

Dick could do simple math too and it wasn’t hard to zero in on the coincidence of the timing. Damian was ten years old. Dick had a one night stand with a certain lethal assassin ten years ago. A one night stand that hadn’t included a condom.

Dick had assumed she’d been on the pill.

“Breathe, Dick,” Bruce ordered. Dick couldn’t. His chest ached from lack of air but he couldn’t breathe, not until Bruce stood and gripped his upper arms and barked the order again. “Breathe!”

“I didn’t know,” Dick said softly.

“Obviously,” Bruce said. Blue eyes scanned Dick’s face before Bruce manhandled him into the chair. He gave Dick another once over and then turned up to the computer, reading and rereading the results like they would change before his eyes. “Dick…”

“Run them again,” Dick said.

Bruce sighed. “Dick, it didn’t make a mistake.”

“Please just run it again.” It sounded like he was begging.

Bruce hesitated but he bent over and ran it again.

“Match found. Paternal relationship established between Grayson, Richard and al Ghul, Damian.”

Dick closed his eyes. “I was a kid, Bruce. I didn’t think.”

“No, you clearly didn’t,” Bruce said.

Dick flinched. He’d been stupid and young and angry. “I’m sorry.”

“It was ten years ago,” Bruce said. But he didn’t say there was nothing to be sorry about and Dick knew this had to be striking a cord, hurting Bruce who may not have known about this breach of trust but still felt the pain ten years late.

“I’m still sorry,” Dick said.

“She had to know,” Bruce said. Trying to change the subject, if Dick had to guess. He couldn’t blame him.

Dick dropped his head into his hands. He’d been mocking Bruce for this just a few hours ago and now it was _his_ problem in _his_ lap and Dick felt like he was drowning.

“They would have run tests. Ra’s wouldn’t have let something this simple get past him,” Bruce said.

Dick barked out a laugh. “Simple?”

“He would have run the test, Dick,” Bruce said, trying to press the information. “So if they know, what game are they playing?”

“Bruce…” Dick said.

“She had to know,” Bruce said.

“Bruce!” Dick shouted.

Silence. Or rather, the same silence that was always between them. The tension in Bruce’s shoulders. The desperation in Dick’s eyes. The noises from the bats hanging on the ceiling. The ungodly _loudness_ of their avoidance. The way they could create a chasm between them by agreeing to never talk about anything.

“Bruce, please. I don’t know what to do,” Dick said. “I need you to help me. I need you not to talk about the goddamn mission or…or fucking Talia. I have a… Christ, I can’t do this.”

Dick had always run. Dick had run like he could live off of that alone. Dick couldn’t stay in Gotham so he’d run to Blüdhaven and even after Blüdhaven was destroyed and he did return to Gotham, he’d run to New York not long after that. Dick had run from Bruce, from Kori, from Barbara. He’d run from Jason when the boy had taken his spot.

“You don’t have a choice,” Bruce said, after a long beat of silence.

Dick stood. “I can’t…”

“Dick, where are you going?” Bruce asked.

Dick hadn’t even realized he’d stepped away. He looked to the side so he didn’t have to meet Bruce’s eyes. “I just need some time.”

“Dick,” Bruce said. It was almost painful how often they communicated like that. Names said in a different tone with a different look. Communication boiled down so much after so many years that a name was simply all it took to communicate everything.

“I know,” Dick said. “I’ll come back. I just need some time.”

It was all in Bruce’s eyes flickering over Dick’s face. “Swear to me.”

“I swear I’ll come back,” Dick said, without a moment’s hesitation. “Please, just-“

“Go,” Bruce said.

Dick took another step back. “And you’ll-“

“I’ll watch him,” Bruce said.

Silence. That same loud silence. “Thank you.”

Bruce didn’t respond but Dick hadn’t expected him to. And even if Bruce had responded, Dick was already running out of the Cave. He wouldn’t have heard it anyways.

**Gotham: One Week Later**

“I thought I’d find you here, Master Richard,” Alfred said.

Dick looked up from where he was sitting on his old bed. He didn’t know how Alfred did that. Dick hadn’t been in the city for a week and the moment Dick came home, snuck in through the window to avoid having to speak to anyone, there Alfred was with a cup of hot tea and a warm smile. “Hi, Alfie.”

“I was surprised when you took off on us,” Alfred said, setting the cup on the end table beside Dick.

“A lot to take in,” Dick said softly, picking up the tea.

Alfred nodded. “While Master Bruce has taken in many children, I must admit that I never expected him to have one of his own.”

Dick’s fingers tightened around the cup on his hands, so tight he was worried for a moment that the thin china would crack under his grip. Bruce hadn’t told Alfred. He didn’t know why and it made the words die in Dick’s throat. Like, somehow, if Bruce didn’t tell him then Alfred never had to know.

“But if this desire to leave stems from some belief that your relationship with Master Bruce will somehow change because of the addition of a blood relation, I must tell you that you are being a fool,” Alfred said.

And if that _had_ been the reason Dick was upset and running, Alfred’s blunt reality check would undoubtedly have struck a chord. Instead, it just reminded him of his real insecurities. How was he supposed to be a good father? He hadn’t known he had a kid until a week ago and the first thing he did was abandon him to Bruce, take off, and throw himself a pity party.

What he needed was a blunt reality check about _that_.

Once again, the words stuck in his throat and Dick didn’t tell Alfred.

Somewhere down the hallways, a door slammed and Dick looked up in the direction. Alfred sighed and patted his shoulder. “Master Damian is a handful to be quite sure. I can only pray that Master Bruce will do some good for the boy.”

Bruce would. He was a great father. Not perfect, far from perfect, but he was good at taking in children who were so broken they didn’t belong anywhere else.

“Damian is lucky to have him as a father,” Dick said, and then wasn’t sure why he’d said it.

Alfred’s lips quirked into a smile. “I believe many said the same for the rest of you. The newspapers are fond of reminding their readers that you all shall never want for anything.”

Dick wouldn’t go that far. The money, sure, but some of the things Dick had always wanted most from Bruce the man struggled to give him.

“I should go talk to him,” Dick said, setting the half empty cup to the side and standing.

“Master Bruce is downstairs,” Alfred said, with the added weight to the last word that made Dick know with a certainty that Alfred didn’t mean the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Dick said, stepping out of the room. But Bruce wasn’t who he’d been talking about.

The boy was in a room. A room of hundreds. Dick had tried counting them all once, racing up and down the halls and throwing open doors and losing count so he’d have to start all over again. Alfred knew the answer, Dick was sure, but part of Dick had always wanted to figure it out for himself. It was strange, but Dick wasn’t actually sure he’d never succeeded. Whatever the number was, however, Dick didn’t remember it. He brushed black hair off his face. He had Talia’s coloring, or a shade of his own maybe.

Talia had been lucky Dick looked so much like Bruce.

“I can hear you breathing, pretender,” Damian said. “I know you’re there.”

Pretender.

“Was I supposed to be hiding?” Dick asked.

Damian looked up. Blue eyes. Bright blue eyes. Dick thought they might have been the same shade as his. “It would be the wisest move. I have no interest in sharing my father with a… a circus performer.”

Dick tried to pretend that didn’t sting. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither is Tim.”

“I beat him fairly in a fight of strength,” Damian said.

Dick didn’t know what story was behind that but Damian seemed incredibly bitter about it.

“I could beat you too,” Damian said. “I’ve been training to fight since birth.”

Dick opened his mouth but nothing came out. Trained since birth. A seed of anger burned the pit of his stomach. Talia had given birth to his son, and then twisted him into her soldier. He wanted to reach out, comfort the boy.

Damian didn’t even know the truth.

“Sometimes fights are about more than just strength,” Dick replied finally.

“Tt,” Damian replied. “Did you come in here for a reason?”

Hell if Dick knew. His fingers were still wrapped around the doorknob and they tightened at the question. “Bruce is a good man.”

“That is what Mother said,” Damian replied. “That the Batman was the best man she knew.”

Bruce was the best man Dick knew too. A protector, a caregiver, a great father.

“You’ll be well taken care of with him,” Dick said.

Damian looked up, eyes narrowing in confusion. “What are you going on about, Grayson?”

Grayson.

“Nothing,” Dick said. He managed a smile. He was good at smiling if nothing else. “Just… if you ever need anything, let me know. Welcome to the family.”

Damian rolled his eyes and went back to whatever was on the desk. “As if I would ever need anything from the likes of you.”

Dick closed the door behind him. Yeah, as if.

~~~

“Alfred said you had returned,” Bruce said.

“I think he has a sixth sense,” Dick said.

Bruce made that soft noise of his, like he wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite make it there.

“Can we talk?” Dick asked.

Bruce looked over his shoulder and Dick was faced with something that almost looked like concern. He averted his gaze so he wouldn’t have to look at it. “Of course, Dick.”

“I mean… really talk,” Dick said.

Dick wasn’t looking so he didn’t know how Bruce was taking it. He still sounded concerned when he spoke. “I suppose.”

Dick took a seat on the edge of the desk, facing Bruce. He’d done that a lot as a kid, small enough to fling himself around the room. He was a lot bigger now, still smaller than Bruce, but he’d never grown out of sitting on the edge of Bruce’s desks and watching him work. “You were a really good parent, Bruce.”

“Dick-“ Bruce started.

Dick didn’t let him get that far. “Bruce, please just listen for a minute. You were a really great dad. When it was just us especially and the long nights and the endless cases and the trophy room and… I don’t tell you that often enough.”

Bruce’s mask was slipping. Notes of pride, maybe, or love if Dick was feeling particularly hopeful.

“Some people were made to be parents. You were not,” Dick said. He laughed. “Raising me and then Jason and then Tim, it’s always been a struggle for you. But you try. You never stopped parenting us just because it was hard. You didn’t just toss us to the side when it got difficult.”

“You’re my children,” Bruce said softly.

Dick nodded, lump thick in his throat. “I know. Which is why what I’m going to ask is going to sound awful.” Bruce didn’t say anything, waiting. Expectant. “I want you to raise Damian.”

Bruce’s mask was back, slamming over his expression. “Dick, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He doesn’t know, Bruce. He thinks he’s yours. He doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Dick said.

“That’s because he doesn’t know,” Bruce said.

Dick gave him a look, expression showing the resignation in his gaze. “Is it? Or is it because the first thing I did was take off? I can’t be a father, Bruce. I was, what, seventeen? Eighteen? When Damian was conceived. Right now he thinks his parents care about each other, that he’s the son of _the_ Batman, that he has a destiny and a bloodline. I can’t look him in the eye and try to explain that I regret sleeping with his mother and that his father has run from everything and everyone that meant anything to him. Including him.”

Bruce stood, putting his hand on Dick’s shoulder. “Dick, he’s _your_ son.”

“No, he’s not,” Dick said. “He’s been raised as yours, Bruce. And that’s okay. The things you can give him are so much more than what I can give him.”

Dick had taken speech from Bruce. The man was standing there, lips parted, but he wasn’t saying anything.

“Please just think about it,” Dick said softly. “You’re a really great father, Bruce. I would be honored for you to raise Damian. I have no right to ask-“

Bruce finally got his mouth around words. “You’re the only person who has the right to ask, Dick.”

Dick closed his eyes. “Please.”

“Are you sure about this?” Bruce asked.

Part of Dick wanted to say no, to say that he’d love to have Damian in his life as his. That he might have made a mistake with Talia but a new life was never a mistake in Dick’s eyes and Damian made that night more than worth it. “I’m sure, Bruce.”

Because when things got hard, Dick ran and he’d never forgive himself for running out on his son.

Bruce’s hand squeezed on his shoulder. “Then I’ll do it.”

Dick wrapped his arms around the man, hugging him like he so rarely did anymore. Bruce stiffened, he always did, but after a moment his arms wrapped around Dick in response. This was for the best. Dick was sure about it.

**Gotham: Three Months Later**

This gravestone hurt worse than John and Mary Grayson’s, and Dick wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Bruce Thomas Wayne.

Dick had his hand on Damian’s shoulder, not that the boy wanted it there. If he were being honest, Dick wanted the comfort more than he thought Damian needed it. The boy was upset, sure, but he and Bruce had struggled to find an even footing. The two were constantly fighting, constantly arguing, and Dick had considered more than once that he’d made the wrong decision. He’d come so close to deciding to rip the whole conspiracy to shreds, and then Damian and Bruce would hug and Dick would see it on the cameras and it would be okay.

Bruce knew what he was doing. Dick trusted him.

Except now Bruce was dead.

Smashed between his fears of how he was going to raise Damian now and the overwhelming grief over having lost the singular rock that he’d always leaned on was a dark seed of anger. The world had left him with a million responsibilities. The shadow of the cowl was hanging in the Cave but it might as well have been resting on his shoulder for the weight that he felt there. And the boy…

The boy.

Tim stood to his right wearing the same dark suit with the same dark circles under his eyes. This had to be hard on him. Losing Bruce, losing Kon El. Dick needed someone to lean on and Tim couldn’t be it right now.

“I do not require your comfort, Grayson,” Damian muttered.

Dick squeezed his shoulder. “Who said it was for you?”

Damian looked up, blue eyes that haunted Dick sometimes. “I… do not approve of you taking my birthright. I am, however, regretful for your loss.”

That was almost sweet coming from Damian.

“Thanks, little D,” Dick said.

Damian swallowed, glancing at the coffin again and then back to Dick. “He meant a great deal to you.”

As if anyone ever had to question that. “Yes, he did. He was the greatest man I knew.”

**Gotham: One Week Later**

“Richard.”

When Alfred had come to him with news of a surprising guest, Alfred’s words, Dick had expected anyone but Talia. He hadn’t spoken to the woman since she’d dropped Damian off to them and Dick wasn’t prepared for the emotions that surged up in him. Anger, hatred… something softer that came from sharing something as precious with her as their child was. “What are you doing here?”

“I was careful with my timing,” Talia said, not answering his question. “I waited until Damian would be at school.”

So she was here to speak with him.

“You need to leave,” Dick growled.

Talia didn’t say anything right away, just walked around the room and stopped in front of one of those old family portraits. The one with Dick and Bruce and that was it. _Old_ family portraits, when Alfred had finally managed to convince Bruce to pose for one since he had a family now. “I lied in wait for weeks after dropping him off. I was sure one of you would come in search of answers. I had to stop you before you could alert the wrong people. You never came.”

Dick clenched his jaw. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was getting at.

“And then news that Bruce Wayne had a new heir,” Talia said. “He isn’t foolish enough not to run tests. You obviously know-“

“That I fathered Damian?” Dick snapped, after checking to make sure Alfred wasn’t within hearing range. “Yes, I know.”

“And yet…” Talia trailed off.

“Well, clearly neither of us thought I was capable of raising a child since you kept him secret from me all that time,” Dick said. “He thought he was Bruce’s. You _told_ him that he was Bruce’s.”

“He was intended to be Bruce’s,” Talia said. Simple as that, at least in her eyes. “Our… occurrence was but two weeks before I engaged with my Beloved to produce an heir of the Wayne and al Ghul bloodlines. My moment of weakness with you meant that I had already conceived by that time.”

Dick ground his teeth. “And you didn’t tell me because?”

“He _needed_ to be Bruce’s,” Talia said. “Father was not going to stand for anything less than a first rate bloodline for his heir. Bruce was the ideal choice, the _only_ choice, to be Damian’s father. If Father had learned of my error, he could have killed me for it in his anger.”

“You lied to Damian and kept my son away from me for your own protection,” Dick growled.

Talia turned cold eyes to him. “He could have killed Damian for my error. Do you think Father would be pleased to find out that his blood has mingled with _yours_?”

Ra’s was an evil bastard. Dick wouldn’t put it past him to think to wipe the “mistake” off the face of the earth. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m making sure that we still have an understanding,” Talia said.

“What?” Dick demanded.

Pain flashed in Talia’s eyes. “With my Beloved gone, I wanted to make sure we were still clear that Damian cannot know of my duplicity. Father cannot know of my duplicity. Damian al Ghul is the son of the true Batman, Bruce Wayne, and you will keep it that way. For Damian’s safety.”

“For your safety, you mean,” Dick said, hating that she was right. Hating that even if the thought had crossed his mind now, he couldn’t do anything. Not with the risk to Damian.

“You have your reasons. I have mine,” Talia said.

Dick’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “He’s your son, Talia. This charade…”

“Do we have an understanding?” Talia asked.

Dick swore and closed his eyes. “Yes. We have an understanding.”

Talia hummed in response. She turned back to the portrait hanging on the wall. “For the record, Richard, I think you made the right choice. He was a great man.”

“Yes, he was,” Dick said darkly. “Get out of my house.”

“It’s not your house,” Talia said. “It’s his. It will always be his. Just like that cowl. Just like you. Death has nothing on that.”

**Gotham: The Night Talia Called Dick**

Dick woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing. He kept it on vibrate during the night. If he had a bed partner, there were only two options. Civilian and vigilante. Either the partner was untrained and wouldn’t wake up to the sound of the vibrating phone, or it was a vigilante who should probably be awake anyways if Dick was getting a call this early in the morning. He reached out and opened it, whispering, “Hold on.”

He was trying desperately not to wake Jason who he had to wiggle out from under and then tip toe across the wood floor of his bedroom to the bathroom. He flicked the light on once the door was firmly closed and then readjusted the phone. “Hello?”

“Richard,” Talia said.

Dick’s hand tightened around the phone. The same rush of emotions he always got around her. He hated her especially for being able to cause that in him now. “Why the hell are you calling me? How did you even get this number?”

“You think I don’t know how to get in contact with the man who fathered my only son?” Talia asked. “Don’t waste my time. Damian is in danger. You need to protect him. Be aware.”

“What are you talking about?” Dick demanded.

“Father knows about him, Richard. He knows about Damian and he knows about you. He’s furious. You need to protect him,” Talia said.

If Dick didn’t know any better, he might have thought Talia actually gave a damn about her son.

“If you told anyone, Richard, I will destroy you,” Talia said.

“Don’t threaten me, Talia. This isn’t my fault. I did everything to keep it a secret,” Dick said.

“Clearly you didn’t do enough, Rich-“ From outside of the bathroom, Dick heard one of the floorboards creak.

Jason.

Dick cut her off. “I have to go. I’ll call you back.” Dick set the phone down and opened the door. Jason was standing there, eyes filled with something that looked an awful lot like suspicion. Dick forced a smile. “What’s up, Jason?”

“I saw the bathroom light on,” Jason replied.

“Nature called,” Dick said.

God, he was such a terrible liar.

Dick thought he saw Jason looking at the phone but he didn’t say anything. There was a pause between them. “Everything okay?”

No. No, everything wasn’t okay. Damian… “Of course.”

He grabbed the phone and walked past Jason. He heard the flick of the light going off and then Jason climbed back into bed with him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: NEW TAGS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THIS STORY. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS STORY WILL CONTAIN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (ALTHOUGH SAID CHARACTER WILL BE SEEKING HELP OVER THE COURSE OF THE STORY) AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD).

**Gotham: Now**

“Jason,” Dick said softly again. He took a step forward only to stop when the other man took a step back. “I can explain.”

“Can you?” Jason demanded.

“I couldn’t tell anyone,” Dick said.

“Including Damian,” Jason said.

Dick nodded, slow nods like he wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted to be doing. “It was safer.”

“Safer,” Jason repeated.

Dick took another step forward and Jason stepped back. “Jason, please.”

“I asked you if you had any secrets,” Jason said. “That was _your_ rule. No secrets.”

Dick felt suitably chastised. It had been Dick’s rule because it kept Jason honest. Not about the dark stuff, although that was an added benefit, but about the things Jason was simply too embarrassed to talk about. Nightmares, flashbacks, depression and anxiety setting in. The outbursts of rage that had Dick ducking dishes from time to time. Jason was good at isolating himself and Dick had wanted to keep him communicating.

“I know,” Dick said.

“You lied to me, Dick. Straight to my goddamn face,” Jason said.

Another step. Jason stepped back.

“We have more important things to be dealing with, Richard,” Talia said.

Damian. But Dick couldn’t drop the ball with Jason either. “Just give me five minutes, Talia. Jason, please. Let’s talk this out.”

“Is your lover more important than your son?” Talia asked.

Dick sent her a glare. “No, but-“

“If you had wanted to talk about this, you should have brought it up sooner,” Jason said.

“Jason,” Dick said, darting forward. He shouldn’t have done that. Jason bolted, the door opening and then slamming shut behind him as he took off for places unknown. Dick froze in place, not sure whether to follow him.

In the end, Talia was right. If his relationship with Jason deteriorated, Dick had to protect Damian first.

Dick would clean up the pieces of his heart later.

“He was always quite dramatic, rather like Bruce that way,” Talia said.

Dick swallowed hard. “He’s passionate. There’s a difference.” He waited another brief moment before turning around and facing Talia. “You said we needed to talk. Tell me what happened.”

“Father attempted to recreate the attempt from eleven years ago,” Talia said.

“You’ve been attempting to make clones of Damian for a long time, Talia. This isn’t news,” Dick said.

Talia turned a heated glare to him. “If I had meant that he was cloning again, that is what I would have said. Father has admitted defeat in the terms of cloning. He attempted to produce another heir, a _brother_ to Damian rather than to recreate Damian. You know that he views him as a failure. He believed that if this child was raised differently, he would not have the same failures as Damian did.”

Another child.

Talia’s eyes grew wet with tears. “He used my Beloved’s DNA to create another child.”

“There’s another-“ Dick started.

Talia shook her head. “The fetus never made it to completion. Father ran several tests to determine what went wrong, compared Damian to the unborn fetus…”

“And found the discrepancy between Damian’s DNA and the baby’s,” Dick said, finishing the thought. He ran his hand through his hair. “How pissed is he?”

“I was not entirely sure I would escape with my life,” Talia replied.

Dick’s chest ached. “And Damian?”

Talia met Dick’s blue eyes with a hard gaze. “Father spoke of getting rid of my mistake.”

Which meant Ra’s would never be content until Damian was dead. Dick felt his chest tighten. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Run,” Talia said. “Or convince Bruce to kill my father.”

Bruce wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Dick wasn’t even sure he wanted him to. “Why Bruce?”

“Could anyone else?” Talia asked.

Not according to Ra’s. When Dick had fought him, Ra’s had seemed damn sure that they were destined to kill each other or some bullshit like that. That Ra’s had somehow deserved to be the death of Bruce or that Bruce should have been the one to take his life.

“I beat him once,” Dick said.

Talia hummed. “But you do not kill.”

“Neither does Bruce,” Dick said, looking up.

Talia turned away from him again. “Which is why my first suggestion was to run.”

Dick and Damian couldn’t run forever. Nor would they ever want to. Damian wouldn’t be happy with that. Maybe, as a parent, Dick should have run anyways. Put Damian’s safety first. But Dick had never been able to do that. What kind of life was he subjecting Damian to if it was one without happiness?

“I can’t run, Talia,” Dick said.

“Then strike hard and fast, Richard,” Talia said. “Father will not die easily.”

Dick’s stomach rolled at the mere thought. “I…”

“Damian’s life is in your hands,” Talia pressed.

Dick closed his eyes. “I’ll protect him.”

“I know you will,” Talia said. “I should leave.”

“Will you be in the city?” Dick asked.

Talia walked past him, brushing past without a word. For the second time in the last ten minutes, Dick’s door opened and shut.

~~~

Jason didn’t knock. That was exactly the kind of subtle, sweet thing that Golden Boy did. Jason tried the door, found it locked, and proceeded to kick the door. The defenses on the Manor were good across the board but for something as civilian as the front door, Jason was only met with a normal, everyday lock. The wood cracked and splintered and the door swung open for Jason to walk through and move quickly up the stairs.

The Manor never changed and while seven months ago Jason could have said he hadn’t stepped a foot in here since before his death, he couldn’t say so now. Jason had been in and out of this house like a revolving door since he’d started dating Dick.

_Dick_.

Bruce’s office was on the second floor but Jason didn’t get to kick this door in. Bruce was seated in the computer chair with the laptop open in front of him and the door wide open. Jason filled up the space with his body and what wasn’t filled up by that was filled up with an almost palpable aura of anger. “I think we need to talk.”

A pair of blue eyes rose slowly to meet Jason’s blue-green ones and then Bruce silently motioned to the chair across from him.

Jason slammed the door shut, hard enough to rattle some of the pictures on Bruce’s wall. There was one from the family afternoon not long ago, where Damian had warned Jason not to hurt Dick.

No one had bothered to warn Dick not to hurt Jason.

“What have I done now?” Bruce asked.

That was almost hysterical. “Nothing.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Was there something that I was supposed to do then that I did not?”

“For once, Bruce, this is not about you,” Jason said.

The look of confusion on Bruce’s face actually _was_ hysterical.

“You are not the father of Damian,” Jason said bluntly.

Bruce arched an eyebrow. “I’m not?”

Jason examined the man’s face hard though, and Jason knew when the old man was lying. His face morphed just right, copied the motions of confusion to the letter, but his eyes told a different story. It was in the way something like shutters closed behind them, a wall keeping Bruce’s secrets from being given away in some small motion of blue irises.

“Son of a fucking bitch!” Jason swore, standing and walking away.

“Jason,” Bruce said, that hint of warning in his tone that Jason was so used to.

“Don’t Jason me, Bruce. Damian is not your fucking son and…and…” Jason trailed off and grew quiet. Bruce was sitting there, patient as could be even with the expectation in his eyes. Jason didn’t even bother keeping his hand to his chest. “Dick…”

Bruce’s shoulders grew tense. Well, Golden Boy was always his soft spot. “How?”

“Not even going to try to lie your way out of this one, are you?” Jason said, a bitter smile on his face.

Bruce hesitated. “Would there have been a point?”

“No,” Jason said.

Bruce nodded, an acknowledgement.

Jason knew he still hadn’t answered Bruce’s question and the weight of it hung heavy in the air. “I overheard Dick and Talia talking.”

“Have you said anything to anyone else?” Bruce asked. Jason shook his head. “Good. Don’t.”

“Does anyone else know?” Jason asked.

“No,” Bruce said. “Just Dick, Talia, and I.”

“Damian doesn’t know that you’re not his father?” Jason asked. That’s what he’d picked up from Dick, anyways. He just wanted some confirmation.

“No,” Bruce said. He glanced at the door. “That’s how Dick wanted it.”

Jason laughed. It was funny and it wasn’t and if he didn’t laugh…. Well, the saying only went one way. “You two have always had this… this fucked up _thing_ between the two of you but there were limits. I thought there were limits.”

“Jason-“

“No, Bruce. Don’t even pretend this isn’t- I don’t even know how to describe this. This is messed up,” Jason said.

Bruce frowned. “It’s no different than Dick putting his child up for adoption.”

Jason’s eyebrows rose. “If you can’t see a huge fucking difference between that and this… fucked up conspiracy, you have bigger issues than even I thought.”

“Keep your voice down, Jason,” Bruce said, glancing at the door again.

“Is Damian here?” Jason asked, too casually.

Bruce’s lips thinned. “Dick doesn’t want him to know, Jason. Whether you think Damian deserves to know or not, you don’t get to make that decision knowing only the things you’ve overheard from conversations you weren’t a part of.”

No. Jason didn’t get to make that decision. He didn’t like admitting that but it was true.

Bruce’s phone rang on his desk, the cell phone lighting up and buzzing with a picture of Dick on the front. Both of them stared at it for a moment. Bruce reached out and Jason took a step towards the door. “Don’t.”

Bruce kept reaching forward and Jason tensed to take off before Bruce hit ignore and looked up at him once again. “You said we needed to talk.”

Placating. Calming. Bruce could be good at that when he wanted to be. Jason had the information and the potential to blow this whole thing to smithereens and that meant, for now at least, Jason got all of Bruce’s attention. In the weirdest way, it reminded Jason of falling asleep with Bruce on the couch when he got sick.

Not that the two had anything to do with each other.

“I wonder if this is how Goldie feels all the time,” Jason spit out bitterly.

Bruce’s gaze never wavered but it did flash with… with pity. That’s what that look was. Jason felt like the same scared animal he’d compared himself to so long ago with Dick. Hurt and aggressively snapping at the people reaching out to help him.

Christ, he needed to lay off the poetry books for a while.

“What are you more upset about, Jason? That no one told Damian?” Bruce asked. “Or that Dick didn’t tell you?”

Jason swore again. “Don’t try and twist this back on me.”

“Because I think this has very little to do with Damian-“ Bruce started.

“I am not one of your goddamn supervillains to psychoanalyze, Bruce,” Jason said, warning in his own voice.

“-And a lot more to do with you,” Bruce finished, like Jason hadn’t even interrupted. “I heard him tell you that he loved you. I know you love him too.”

“You don’t know _anything_ about me, old man!” Jason growled.

“Go talk to him,” Bruce said.

Jason snapped. “I stopped taking orders from you a long time ago!”

He spun on his heel and darted from the room, suddenly reminded why he’d always hated this damn building.

~~~

“Bruce Wayne. Leave a message.”

Dick didn’t bother, just hung up before the beep even sounded. He sped around the corner, heading towards Jason’s apartment. He paused and then hit the button on his earpiece. “Call Wayne Manor.”

“Calling Wayne Manor.” The phone rang once, twice, three times before Alfred’s familiar British accent took the phone. “You’ve reached Wayne Manor. How may I assist you?”

“Alfred, its Dick. Do you know where Bruce is?” Dick asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

“Upstairs in his office unless events have disrupted that,” Alfred replied.

“Events?” Dick asked.

Alfred cleared his throat. “It appears as if Master Jason may have made an unannounced visit. Completely destroyed the front door in the process.”

Alfred liked that front door too. However, Dick knew it wasn’t a jab at Jason as much as the butler’s way of digging into what had caused Jason to go on such a destructive rampage. “Is he still there?”

“No, sir,” Alfred replied.

The light turned green but Dick didn’t move right away and Gotham’s irritated citizens honked their horns at him. He pressed the gas and continued his conversation. “I messed up, Alfred. I messed up big time. Not just with Jason.”

“I’m sure it’s not nearly as terrible as you think it is,” Alfred assured him.

Except it was. “You don’t understand. I lied. To everyone.”

Alfred was silent for a moment, maybe the desperation in Dick’s tone finally tripping some alarm for him. “Master Richard, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Dick said. “I messed up.”

“What happened?” Alfred asked, almost a demand. Going from stuffy butler to stern grandfather.

“I made a really stupid mistake. A lot of them, really. And when it came time to own up to them, I didn’t,” Dick said. He could still picture in his head the first time he’d seen Damian as his son. Not the moment on the beach, with Talia behind him, but right there in Damian’s new bedroom while the boy was bent over his desk. When Dick had looked at his son and, knowing that, still didn’t say anything. “And Jason found out. He probably confronted Bruce about it.”

“Master Bruce was aware of this…mistake of yours?” Alfred asked.

“He’s always known,” Dick said.

A beat of silence, like Alfred was finally understanding something. Jason was not particularly fond of Dick’s leap first attitude when it came to Bruce. He’d nearly gone ballistic a month and a half ago when Bruce had told Dick to jump off the side of the building and Dick had done so, no hesitation and no questions asked. Of course, there was Damian swooping in with the Bat-Plane. No real danger unless Bruce misjudged the time. Dick and Jason had argued. Jason telling Dick that he trusted Bruce too much and Dick telling Jason that he trusted Bruce too little.

They were never going to agree on that.

And Alfred had overheard that from his place in the Cave as well as numerous other arguments on the subject. Before they got together, after they got together. Jason didn’t like being kept out of the loop and he liked being out a loop that Bruce was in even less.

Suddenly the splintered pieces of mahogany on the parlor floor made some sense. “Master Richard, what have you been lying about that you think was so awful?”

Dick was parked outside Jason’s apartment, looking up at the window he knew from experience was Jason’s. He turned off the bike and replied, “Remember towards the end, right before I left, you told me that Bruce was trying? You said something like, parents can only make the decisions they think are best…”

“And we must look at those decisions not with hard eyes but with the knowledge that those decisions are made with the intent of love,” Alfred finished. “Yes, sir, I remember.”

“I thought I was making the right decisions,” Dick said. “I made them with love.”

Alfred’s grip around the house phone tightened, not missing the comparison. “Master Richard-“

The light flicked on in the apartment Dick was watching.

“I’ll explain later,” Dick said. “Right now I have to go.” He hung up, pressing the button on his helmet and then pulled it off his head before walking inside.

Dick knocked on Jason’s apartment door. The muffled noises coming from within grew silent and Dick knocked again.

No response.

“I know you’re in there, Jason,” Dick said.

The door ripped open and Jason’s eyes were glowing green. Nearly the same shade as when Jason started turning violent. Not his fault, no one’s fault. But it was the shade Dick associated with knives in the kitchen wall, broken pieces of ceramic all over the tiled floor, and a throbbing pain in his jaw. “You need to leave, Dick.”

Dick had been expecting that. “Not this time, Jason.”

“I am not safe to be around,” Jason said. His knuckles were white around the edge of the door.

Dick pushed into the room and shut the door behind him. “We need to talk.”

Jason took a step back, putting some space between him and Dick. “God, you’re such a damn fool. _Leave_ , Dick. I can’t do this right now.”

Dick didn’t move. “I didn’t want to lie to you.”

Jason closed his eyes and ground his teeth together. “Well, you managed to do it anyways.”

“I was protecting him,” Dick said.

“Is that what you call that?” Jason demanded. “I mean, even if we take you lying to my fucking face out of the equation – you think Damian is going to feel protected when he finds out? Or is he going to feel just as fucking betrayed as I do?”

Dick took a step forward, ignoring when Jason slammed his fist into the wall without so much as a flinch. “I did what I thought was best.”

“You always do. Damn what the rest of us think,” Jason said. His expression turned into something like a cruel smirk. “Unless Daddy Dearest tells you to do something. And then you do what _he_ thinks is best.”

“This isn’t about Bruce,” Dick said. Another step.

“It’s always about Bruce with you,” Jason said.

It was all the warning signs. All of Jason’s insecurities blending together for him a bright green haze. “Jason, this is about _us_.”

“I know that,” Jason snapped.

Did he?

Dick took another step forward and rested his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I lied to you.”

Jason’s eyes popped open again. “Yeah. That’s the part I’m aware of.”

“But I didn’t do it to hurt you,” Dick said.

Jason grabbed Dick’s wrist in a punishing grip and pulled it off his shoulder. He didn’t let go, though, and Dick was hoping that was a good sign. “Let me guess. You had the best of intentions.”

“I did,” Dick replied.

“That’s not enough!” Jason yelled. His grip grew a little tighter and he backed Dick up towards the door. “It’s not enough. Isn’t that what you all tell me? When I’m blowing the brains out of Gotham’s underbelly and my intentions are good but it doesn’t justify what I’ve done?”

Still blending. Jason was all over the map. Dick just wanted to fix this, explain. “I’m sorry, Jason.”

Dick’s back hit the door and he immediately put his hand against Jason’s chest to keep some space between them. If things got violent, Dick wanted the space to protect himself. “You should have left, Dick.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Dick said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

Jason laughed. “I should be with my lying boyfriend?”

“Jason,” Dick said. His hand slid up and cupped Jason’s cheek, thumb running over the cheekbone right under one glowing Pit green eye. He hesitated, cautious, and leaned forward to press their lips together.

Jason filled the space between them, boxing Dick’s body in against the door. What started gentle on Dick’s end was bruising on Jason’s side. He pulled back and growled. “Damn it, Dick. You’re not going to kiss this better.”

“I know,” Dick said.

“Do you?” Jason demanded.

Dick kissed him again instead of answering. It wasn’t nearly as gentle this time, taking notes of aggression from Jason’s response to his first kiss. Jason responded, he usually did, and pinned Dick’s wrist against the door. Teeth sunk into Dick’s lip, a sharp sting following, and Dick’s tongue swept the taste of copper out of his mouth. “I made a mistake.”

Jason’s free hand slid down Dick’s side. “Damn right you did.”

Fingers squeezed around Dick’s hip. “With you. Maybe with Damian.”

“Can you make up your mind?” Jason asked, fingers pulling Dick’s shirt up and baring the inches of waist above Dick’s pants. “Do you want to talk or touch?”

“Can’t I do…” Dick trailed off as Jason put his lips on Dick’s neck. Lips, then teeth. Worrying bruises into Dick’s skin. “Can’t I do both?”

“Personally, I just want you to shut up,” Jason snapped. “I don’t trust a goddamn word out of your mouth anymore so I don’t want to hear it.”

Dick made a face. “You know me better than that.”

The green in Jason’s eyes grew brighter. “I don’t fucking know you at all.”

Jason pulled on Dick’s wrist, dragging him backwards. It was too fast and Dick stumbled but that’s where he was headed anyways, into Jason’s arms to kiss him again. Teeth clashed, snapping against each other, and Jason grabbed Dick’s other wrist. “You’re a fucking liar, Dick.”

“I know,” Dick said.

Jason used his hold on Dick’s wrists to pull him against him and back him into the wall. The picture frame rattled with the force and Dick knew he’d have bruises on his back. “To my _fucking_ face.”

“I know,” Dick repeated.

Jason pulled him off the wall. The hands let go of Dick’s wrists and he had enough time to notice the red marks there before Jason pulled on the hem of his shirt, tugging it over his head. Material ripped and Dick caught Jason smiling at the sound before his hands were on Dick’s chest, shoving him back against the wall. “You know I hate that.”

“Yes, I do,” Dick said.

Nails, teeth, bruising fingers against his skin. Dick’s back arched when Jason dragged his nails down Dick’s stomach. “I trusted you.”

Dick didn’t say anything, couldn’t when Jason was driving his tongue in between Dick’s lips moments after. He reached up, held Jason’s face only for his hands to be dragged away and pinned to the wall again. Jason’s eyes flashed. “Don’t.”

Dick was catching his breath so his reply was wordless, a simple nod showing that he understood.

He let go of Dick’s hands again before grabbing his hips and lifting him up. Dick wrapped his legs around Jason’s waist on instinct. He was slammed back against the wall, his curse muffled by Jason’s mouth on his again, and then Jason was reaching for the button to his pants. There would be bruises, so many bruises, and Dick knew he should have been more concerned about that but in the moment…

“I love you,” Dick said.

Jason tensed and let go of Dick, letting him drop to the ground in a mess of limbs. He grabbed Dick by the hair and hauled him back up, pulling him into a kiss. No tongue, just Jason’s lips against his and a mumbled, “Don’t say it again. Not now.”

Jason dragged him towards the bedroom, Dick struggling to keep up with him even if they were both aiming for the same place. Dick grabbed Jason’s shirt and pulled it off of him. Jason grabbed his hips then and pushed him onto the bed. Dick didn’t complain about the rough treatment, far from it he just pulled Jason down to him.

Another bite to his lip, tongue flicking over the bloody skin there, and Dick knew it would be swollen for a day or two. He rolled them over, seating himself on top of Jason only to be pushed back and pinned down to the bed. “No, Dick.”

Green eyes. Bright green eyes. Jason didn’t have much control at this point, couldn’t.

“Do you want this?” Jason demanded.

“You know I do,” Dick said.

Jason grabbed Dick’s chin and squeezed along the jaw, as if Dick wouldn’t open his mouth of his own volition. Then he pushed three fingers between Dick’s lips. “Suck.”

Dick hesitated and then went ahead and did as Jason had demanded. He’d known coming in where this would head, at least suspected. Dick fixed problems and sometimes the problem was Jason needing an outlet for his anger. He’d tried to offer before and Jason had said no, not to let the Pit ruin this for them. But now, with Jason hurt and angry and lost in his head because of Dick’s secrets… Dick just wanted to fix it.

His tongue slid over the pads of Jason’s fingers, sucking and swallowing around the fingers in his mouth. With Jason’s other hand, he finished undoing Dick’s pants He yanked on the jeans, pulling them down his hips and letting Dick kick them the rest of the way off before doing the same with his boxers. Dick felt vulnerable, the only one undressed. Jason pulled his fingers out of Dick’s mouth, tapping the spit covered fingers under Dick’s chin and then undoing his own pants. “Lay down.”

Dick was already leaning back, weight resting on his elbows. He didn’t move right away and the hesitation was long enough for Jason to splay a hand over Dick’s chest and shove him down onto the bed. Dick came off the bed when Jason pressed one finger in without warning. “Fuck.”

“Problem, Dickie?” Jason asked.

Dick forced himself to relax and shook his head. “No.”

“Liar,” Jason said.

Green eyes.

The single finger slid back and forth, easing the passage open so that Jason could slide a second finger in and soon after a third. Probably too soon after if the way the slight burn was anything to go by. Dick closed his eyes, still working on staying relaxed, when he heard Jason spit. He opened his eyes in time for Jason to take his now slick hand to his own cock and stroke himself before pulling his fingers out of Dick. Jason grabbed Dick’s legs and pushed them up, creating a stretch down the hamstring, before pushing in.

Dick was no stranger to rough sex. With so many scars on his body, nerve damage got pretty extensive and there were places he could feel a damn thing unless his bed partner was biting down on it. He just usually wasn’t taking it up the ass when his partners were getting rough. Jason’s mouth was on his a moment later, the weight of Jason on his legs as he rutted forward into Dick making the burn in his legs hotter, and Dick put all his focus into sucking on the tongue that entered his mouth.

“How far do you stretch before you snap, Dickie?” Jason mumbled against his mouth.

There was more weight to that question than Dick thought there should be. Like Jason was going to break Dick for Dick breaking him. How far had Dick stretched Jason before he snapped?

Jason bottomed out and groaned against his mouth. “Tight as a fucking vice.”

Might have something to do with the remarkable lack of lubrication involved.

“Move, Jason,” Dick said, knowing the friction would get them both somewhere if Jason would just move.

Teeth caught onto Dick’s neck again. “I’ll move eventually, bluebird. Don’t you worry.”

He did move after taking a moment to just roll his hips against Dick’s ass and leave more marks all over Dick’s neck. And when he did move, it was a piston snapping of his hips that had Dick gasping. Surprise, pain, pleasure blending together. Jason took advantage, mouth back on Dick’s like they couldn’t breathe unless they shared air.

“Fuck,” Dick said again, panting and bringing his hands up of their own volition to slide into Jason’s hair.

Then his hands were against the bed, fingers entwined with Jason’s who was holding him like that to keep him still and pinned once more. “I told you no.”

Don’t touch. Right. Dick hated that. He suspected that played a part in Jason not wanting him to do it. “I don’t take orders from you, Jason.”

A smirk against Dick’s lips and Jason’s tongue slipped out to drag a few droplets of blood from where they’d gathered there. “You do tonight, bluebird.”

Despite the lubrication and the burn Jason was causing because of it, he still hit that spot that made Dick see stars. He could feel himself hardening between them, his hips jerking in search of friction, and he keened in his desperation. “Jason-“

“Want me to touch it?” Jason asked, still pounding himself into Dick’s ass. “No.”

Dick groaned, Jason’s abuse of his prostate getting him _right there_ on the edge without tipping him over.

“Get off like this for me, Dickie,” Jason said. Green eyes. “I know you can do it.”

“Please,” Dick said, heat pooling but not releasing. Just building and building and turning his blood into lava.

“No,” Jason said. Cruel. He slammed his hips into Dick again. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t sit down again. I want to watch you cum from that.”

“That’s not you talking,” Dick said.

Green eyes. “Does it matter?”

Dick licked his lips. It stung where the bite was. “No.”

“Now, Dickie,” Jason ordered.

Dick squeezed Jason’s hands, fingers digging into his boyfriend’s skin since it was the only motion he could make pinned like this. His body shuddered, tremors wracking him as he splattered cum all over Jason’s chest.

Jason’s hands moved from where they were pinning Dick’s hands to the bed and squeezed around his hips again, lifting him to a better angle and picking up an even more ruthless pace. “Just like that, bluebird. Just like- _Jesus fuck_.”

Dick felt him inside of him, the rush of liquid.

Jason hadn’t used a condom. Logically, Dick knew they were both safe but it made his stomach twist anyways.

“Fuck,” Jason said.

Green. Teal. Blue eyes staring back at him.

Jason climbed back, pulling out and letting Dick stretch out tight muscles. He leaned forward over Dick and pressed a kiss to his lips. The words were never voice out loud, just mumbled against Dick’s lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Dick said, voicing them out loud for the both of them.

The Pit exhausted Jason and it was mere seconds before Jason was curled around him and asleep, Dick moving to hold him better.

~~~

Bruce looked up from his laptop again. Not that he was doing much work on it, not since Jason had left. The footsteps drew his attention from his thoughts, however, and he found Alfred in the doorway. He walked inside and closed the door. “We need to talk, Master Bruce.”

Bruce sighed. “You’re the second person who has come in here today to tell me that."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following a rather intense chapter, this one felt kind of mellow to me. It's longer than all the others (except /maybe/ the first chapter) and as usual, I'm not too sure about it. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> A special shout out to KaRaEa once again. She isn't feeling too great so I put this chapter up early today instead of tonight. Feel better, darling, and if you can't feel better then at least enjoy a new chapter.

**Gotham: Now**

When Dick woke up, there was a general ache to his body. A soreness to muscles and a throbbing to his neck and ass. He rolled over, chasing the warmth of the body beside him, wrapping an arm over Jason’s waist and burying his face in the man’s shoulder. He inhaled deeply. Cigarette smoke. Gunpowder. Some kind of body wash that smelled spicy.

“We need to talk, Dick,” Jason said.

He didn’t sound tired, which meant that Jason had been awake and lying still in bed for quite some time. Dick would have preferred him to have been sleeping. Dick pressed his lips against his shoulder, not a kiss but intimate in the same way. “I know.”

Jason didn’t move nor speak for a moment but then he sat up and Dick missed the warmth beside him. Jason turned to face him although he looked anywhere but Dick’s face. His gaze settled on Dick’s neck for a long time and then the scratches and bruises between the scars on Dick’s stomach. The stiff way Dick was holding himself to keep from aggravating some of the soreness that was on the inside. He swore, closing his eyes. “I told you to leave.”

“I know,” Dick said again.

“Does anything need looked at?” Jason asked. The guilt was so thick in his eyes that it almost made Dick reach out.

“No,” Dick said. He waited until Jason finally pulled his eyes up to meet Dick’s before adding, “I would never let that happen.”

Jason’s expression darkened. “Like that, I might not give you a choice.”

Jason’s anger was destructive, usually. Not cruel. He didn’t tend to zero in on Dick as much as Dick got caught in the way and ended up with a black eye. “I could have left. I chose not to. That’s on me.”

“No, Dick! It’s on me! I’m a damn grown up. I can’t just let this control me and leave you with…” Jason broke off, swearing again and brushing his finger over Dick’s lip. The older man couldn’t stop the flinch before it crossed his face. “Goddamn it, Dick. I didn’t want to sleep with you while I was like that.”

“I just wanted to help,” Dick said. It was his fault. So much of Jason’s anger was Dick’s fault.

Jason pulled his hand away. Dick’s lip still stung. “No. You wanted to fix it. That didn’t fix it.”

“I didn’t expect it to,” Dick said.

Jason was quiet for a moment as his eyes roamed over Dick’s body once again. They settled on, of all things, Dick’s hands. “You lied to me, Dick.”

Dick licked his lips and winced again. “I-“

Jason shook his head. “Not right now. You should take a shower. I’ll get dressed. I’ll get some breakfast made.”

Dick nodded, sitting up and leaning against the headboard. Jason didn’t move and it occurred rather late that he was waiting for Dick to move. “Go on.”

Confusion flashed across Jason’s face but it wasn’t until Dick moved and a muscle twitched in mutiny that he realized why Dick was waiting. Dick was good at faking better, good at swallowing injuries to keep people from noticing. But Jason was too well trained to be fooled.

More than that, he knew Dick too well to be fooled.

“I told you to leave,” Jason repeated. He stood, pulling on his pants from wherever he’d kicked them off during the night and walked around to the other side of the bed to scoop Dick up.

Dick wrapped an arm around Jason’s shoulders to balance himself. “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you to the shower,” Jason said.

“Jason, you don’t have to-“ Dick said.

Jason shifted him with ease and Dick was startled into the realization, not for the first time, that his Little Wing wasn’t so little anymore. More than capable of carrying Dick around for a short time. “I don’t have to. I want to. You’re going to be hurting for a while.” But then, like it hit him, “Do you not want me to touch you?”

Dick was taken aback. “Of course I want you to touch me.”

Something brushed one of the bruises on his hip and Dick looked down to find Jason’s thumb rubbing softly back and forth. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

Dick hesitantly put his other arm around Jason’s neck and relaxed into Jason’s grip. It felt good. “I want you to touch me, Jason.”

Jason’s eyes were all over Dick’s face, like he was making sure Dick was telling the truth, and then he nodded. He carried Dick into the bathroom, using his hip to bump the door open, and kissed Dick back when the man pressed their lips together.

~~~

Jason took a seat across from Dick, grateful the table put some space between him. Even more grateful, selfishly, that Dick was dressed. It covered the worst of the bruises on Dick’s hips and chest, though the bite marks all over his neck were still very visible. There were some that Jason could make out the impressions of individual teeth and his stomach rolled, shame biting deep.

“I’m fine,” Dick said. “I’ve had worse.”

“It’s different when it’s me,” Jason said. Maybe not for Dick, although Jason would seriously doubt that, but definitely for Jason. “We’ll talk about that later.” Or never. Never was more likely. “That’s not what you came over here to talk about.”

Dick nodded and Jason caught the motion with his hands, tapping against the wooden dining room table. A nervous tick that Jason found endearing, even now. “I don’t know where to start.”

“The beginning,” Jason said. He propped his elbow on the table and lowered his chin onto his hand. “Tell me what happened.”

Dick still seemed at a loss for words but when the silence grew too loud for him, he managed to spit out a stuttered, “You had barely started working with Bruce back then.”

Jason and Dick hadn’t been particularly close at the time. And if someone had told Jason that he’d be dating Bruce’s Golden Boy one day, he’d have laughed and then clocked them right in the face. Even then, Dick had been gorgeous and pubescent Jason had a couple of uncomfortable dreams about him but Dick had been an ass and Jason had been too proud with an age gap to make anyone cringe, so that had been that. The end.

“And I was so angry,” Dick said. “He fired me, took Robin away from me, and then gave it to you. I didn’t… I didn’t want to be angry at you because I knew it wasn’t your fault but Robin was _mine_. Before you and Tim and Damian. Steph. Robin was my mom calling me to dinner and smiling at me at the circus. Bruce just gave it away to someone else.”

It had taken Jason a long time to see that. To understand why Dick had always been so irritated with him, or so it seemed. Why wouldn’t he be?

“Talia came to Blüdhaven. That was still when her and Bruce were doing the on and off thing.” Before off became much more permanent. “And she… well, you’ve seen her.”

“I’ve slept with her,” Jason replied dryly.

Dick’s head popped up. “You what?”

Jason huffed a breath through his nose. “Back when she put my brain back together, and added a little something extra. We slept together.”

Something flashed in Dick’s eyes. Anger, but not at Jason. He figured Dickie had a problem with Talia sleeping with him. Typical Dick. “Well then…”

“She’s hot,” Jason agreed. “No doubt about it. I’m just surprised you did it since she and Bruce were-“

“Still sort of together?” Dick finished. “Well, I’m not proud of it.”

“Of course not, Goldie,” Jason said.

The corners of Dick’s mouth curled at the old familiar nickname. “But he had taken something of mine and I guess I wanted to take something from him too. So I slept with her.”

“Without a condom?” Jason asked.

“When she didn’t say anything about it, I had figured she was on the pill,” Dick said defensively.

Jason closed his eyes and shook his head but amusement colored the action. “And after all those safe sex talks.”

“She told me that Ra’s was planning something and she wanted a night that was just hers. She swore that no one would be hurt. I guess his big plan was trying to get Talia pregnant with Bruce’s kid,” Dick said.

“But she was already pregnant with yours,” Jason said.

Dick nodded. “She didn’t tell me and I didn’t know, not until Damian showed up last year. Bruce ran a paternity test and when it failed, tried to get a hit off the Bat Cave database. Took the computer all of seconds to make the match.”

“Doesn’t explain why Damian is a Wayne, though,” Jason said.

Dick’s eyes grew a little sadder. “I took off when I found out. Booked it out of the city for a week.”

“Dickie…” Jason trailed off.

Dick cringed a little, and Jason wasn’t sure if it was at the nickname or some memory crossing his mind. “I know. But after things didn’t work out with Kori and things didn’t work out with Babs, and at the time… that was it for me. They were the people I really, honestly thought about sharing my life with. I’d kind of figured that children weren’t in the cards for me. Which was fine, you know? Look what happened to Lian. We all had a choice between normalcy and this and I chose this and if that meant that I missed out on the white picket fence then so be it.”

It sounded like Dick was trying to convince himself, instead of Jason.

“I panicked and I took off. Because that’s what I do. It’s how I fuck everything else up,” Dick said bitterly. “And when I got back all I could think was that I would do it again.”

“You didn’t know that,” Jason said.

“But I could have,” Dick said. “What if I took Damian in and then I took off on him again? I knew Bruce would step in and care for him while I took care of myself but what kind of father does that?”

Not a good one. But Jason still didn’t think that Dick would have left Damian.

“And Bruce just offered to take Damian?” Jason asked.

“No, I asked him,” Dick said. “And with some convincing he said yes.”

Fucking Golden Boy.

“Catch me up to speed,” Jason prompted again.

Dick sighed. “Bruce died, or we all thought he was dead. And that’s really all that matters. Bruce was dead and Damian got left to me. Obviously. He hated me. When he wasn’t telling me I was unfit to take Bruce’s place in the cowl, he was slamming doors and screaming at me. Fighting Tim and getting angry when I wouldn’t immediately take his side. But I was still going to tell him, as soon as I worked up the courage.” He glanced up at Jason and even with Dick’s dark skin, he could make out pink in his cheeks. “I know how stupid that sounds but he already thought I was a failure. He was going to find out that I couldn’t handle being a father either, handed it off to Bruce, and I just wasn’t ready for that kind of disappointment from my own son.”

“But?” Jason asked.

“But Talia showed up. She told me that if it ever went public that Ra’s would be furious. He’d kill her. Damian and I if he got his hands on us. That’s what she kept pushing. That Damian’s safety was in jeopardy. I wasn’t sure at the time whether she was lying to save her own skin,” Dick said. “But I couldn’t take the risk with Damian’s life. And, to be honest, I didn’t want to be the reason Damian’s mother was dead. I don’t like the woman any more than you do, but she’s my son’s other parent.”

It meant something, even something small.

“Partly, I just wanted an excuse not to have to tell him. And I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut and when Bruce came back, I stepped back and let him take Damian back,” Dick said.

“You fucked up,” Jason said.

Dick’s shoulders tightened. “Maybe.”

“Definitely,” Jason said. “This was crossing a line.”

Dick looked away and didn’t say anything.

“You ran out on him,” Jason said. “Just in a different way.”

“I know,” Dick said. More of a whisper. “I was scared.”

“Are,” Jason corrected.

“What?” Dick asked.

“You _are_ scared,” Jason said. “You have to tell him, before he finds out from someone else.”

Dick’s head popped up. “Are you going to tell him?”

Jason was silent for a moment. “Not unless you don’t.”

“He’s my son,” Dick said. “You don’t get to make those decisions.”

Jason chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. “Maybe not. But he should know.”

“I have to tell him,” Dick said. Glum. Depressed. “There’s no way he won’t find out before this is over. I just need some time.”

“No you don’t,” Jason said.

“Please,” Dick said. “I’ll tell him. I swear.”

Jason hesitated but then, “Fine.”

Dick’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

Jason still wasn’t sure if he’d made the right choice.

“What are you going to do now?” Jason asked.

“I need to talk to Bruce. We have to keep Damian safe. Talia says the only way to do that is to kill Ra’s,” Dick said. “But right now, I’d really like to know we’re okay.”

“Dickie, we’re so far from okay,” Jason said. He wasn’t even sure how Dick could associate their relationship right now with the word okay.

Dick looked like Jason had slapped him. “Are you trying to tell me it’s over?”

Was he? Jason was hurt. Something so important to Dick had apparently not even crossed his mind to tell Jason about. And maybe it was fair that Dick hadn’t said anything at the beginning, but when Jason was looking him in the eye and asking if things were okay… that was when Dick had lied to him and the excuses fell through. “No. But things aren’t okay.”

Dick swallowed and then said, “Well, that’s something.”

Jason stood and walked over, standing beside Dick who leaned his head up to look at him from where he was sitting in the chair. Jason leaned down and pressed another kiss to his boyfriend’s lips. “I love you.”

Blue eyes popped open, more surprise in them in that moment than Jason had ever seen in them before. “This is an awful time to say that.”

“Why?” Jason asked.

“Because there’s so much going on,” Dick said.

Jason arched an eyebrow. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

Dick didn’t let it go. “I thought you’d never say it.”

“You didn’t think I loved you?” Jason asked.

“I didn’t think you’d tell me you do,” Dick said. “And now you’ve said it, and there’s a million and two things that have to be done before we can deal with that.”

Jason gave him a half smile. “Maybe that’s why I said it now.”

“I love you too,” Dick said.

Jason brushed strands of black hair out of Dick’s face. “I was serious. This doesn’t mean we’re okay.”

Dick was silent for a moment and then repeated Jason’s words. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

~~~

Jason accompanied Dick to the Manor which Dick thought was pretty sweet of his boyfriend. Especially considering Dick knew Jason’s last visit here had ended with a splintered door, a broken lock, and most importantly, a fight with Bruce.

Dick knocked and Jason snorted. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jason said, but he was smiling which was either a really good thing or a really bad thing. “Just something I thought about yesterday. You knocking.”

“You thought about me knocking?” Dick asked.

“You’re a nice guy. You knock,” Jason said.

Sometimes Jason and Dick clicked perfectly, seeming to have almost a psychic understanding of each other. Other times, like this, Dick thought he would never understand Jason. “Right.”

The door opened silently, too new for there to be even the slightest squeak. “Master Richard, Master Jason.”

“Alfie,” Jason said.

“I’m glad we left the door in one piece this time,” Alfred said.

Jason looked down. “Sorry. I’ll pay for it, Alfred.”

“That will be entirely unnecessary,” Alfred said. “I believe Master Bruce has a line in the budget regarding things broken by his children.”

Dick snorted. “Sounds about right.”

“And his grandchildren,” Alfred said, sliding the words in smooth as butter.

Dick’s stomach flopped and only Jason’s hand suddenly at the small of his back steadied him. “Alfred-“

“Master Damian is not currently present, sir. He’s at school. Which makes it, I think, quite a perfect time to have a chat together,” Alfred said. “The four of us.”

Dick didn’t move, even when Jason lightly pushed on his back to enter the Manor. “You can do this, bluebird.”

It didn’t feel like it, but Dick nodded and stepped inside.

Alfred led them down the hallways and Jason’s hand never wavered. The warm, solid presence there was a special kind of reassurance. Even as Dick’s world felt like it was falling to pieces, the carefully put together make-believe world that every lie had worked to keep together, Jason was there beside him. It had to be hard, because Jason was hurting too, and Dick marveled silently at the strength that kept him here.

“I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m the runner in this family,” Dick said.

To Jason’s credit, he didn’t even have to ask what Dick meant. “You’d be here if I needed you.”

Jason had more confidence in Dick than Dick did. Maybe ill-placed confidence.

“Dick,” Bruce said, when the three finally joined him in the den. He stood up from where he’d been sitting on an armchair by the unlit fire place. “Jason.”

“Bruce,” Dick replied, voice soft and quiet.

“I took the liberty of making tea and cookies when you informed me that you were coming over,” Alfred said. Sure enough, there was a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table and the familiar set up for tea.

“Got anything stronger to put in that tea than sugar, Alfie?” Jason asked. He caught the glance from the old butler and sighed. “Yeah, straight tea it is.”

Dick took a seat on the sofa and Jason joined him, sitting beside him like some kind of defense.

“Alfred said you called him upset last night. He seemed to have figured it out by the time he got to me,” Bruce said.

Dick nodded. He’d figured as much. Dick hadn’t exactly been subtle when he’d been talking to Alfred. Disorganized, maybe. His conversation had been somewhat chaotic, but not subtle. “He was going to find out anyway. It’s Alfred, after all.”

“If that were the case, Master Richard, than keeping this a secret would have been considered an effort of futility. Why not tell me then?” Alfred asked.

“Because I still held out hope that you wouldn’t figure it out,” Dick said.

“If it wasn’t for this thing with Ra’s, I don’t think any of us _would_ have figured it out,” Jason said. He glanced at Dick but his eyes settled on Bruce. “The two of you were doing a fine job of lying to everyone.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “He doesn’t need that right now.”

“He’s right, Bruce. I lied. Jason has the right to be upset about that,” Dick said. He folded his hands together in his lap. “But you shouldn’t be angry with Bruce. He only did what I asked him to do, and that included keeping it from all of you.”

“You were emotionally compromised,” Jason said. “He should have been clear headed enough to tell you what a bone headed move this was.”

Alfred cleared his throat and pulled back his shoulders. “Personally, I think you both have made an error here. Neither party can be held completely to blame. And, perhaps, some blame lies with the likes of us as well.”

Dick’s head came up sharply. “How could you think any of this was your fault, Alfred?”

“Something made you feel inclined to keep this information from me, sir,” Alfred said. “And whatever that something may have been is my fault.”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me,” Dick said softly.

“Whatever did I do to make you think that I would ever feel that way about you, Master Richard?” Alfred asked, the genuine question tugging on Dick’s heartstrings.

Dick didn’t have an answer to that.

“I think it’s past the point of blame,” Bruce said, ignoring the noise Jason made in the back of his throat. “We need to make a plan.”

“Talia thinks we should kill him,” Dick said.

Bruce made that same critical noise in the back of his throat. “She would.”

“You disagree?” Jason asked.

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest. “And I can probably safely assume that you _don’t_ disagree.”

“You know how Ra’s is, Bruce. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants,” Jason said. “Locking him up is a joke. We have nothing worthy enough to keep him off our backs.”

“You mean Dick’s back,” Bruce said.

Jason scoffed. “No, I mean our backs. I don’t know about you, but Dick will have me by his side no matter what path he decides to take.”

That line in the sand, where Dick might have to get his hands dirty in order to protect his son, wasn’t going to keep Jason from helping him. And, as much as he’d hate it, if Dick decided to follow Bruce’s code then Jason would help him as best he could then too. But Bruce was right, and Jason agreed with Talia that the only way to put a stop to Ra’s coming after Damian was to kill him.

“Murder is not the answer,” Bruce said. It sounded like a response to Jason but he was facing Dick.

Dick sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples. “It’s not like I want to kill anyone, Bruce.”

Of course Dick didn’t. After Blockbuster, any thoughts Dick had considered about taking that final step had shriveled up and died. Dick hadn’t even pulled the trigger that time, but the death still dragged on his heart and he knew there would be parts of him that he’d never feel were clean.

But if it protected Damian, if he killed Ra’s and that meant Damian lived, then was Dick prepared to live with the guilt from that? Maybe.

“There’s another way,” Bruce said. “There always is.”

Jason’s lips curled in disgust but Dick put his hand on Jason’s knee and squeezed before Jason could say anything. “I don’t want to kill anyone, Bruce. We’ll try to find another way first.”

Something flashed in Jason’s eyes that looked kind of like hurt. It was too common an expression around Bruce. But Dick had a feeling this hurt had more to do with Dick choosing Bruce’s way.

Dick felt another argument on the horizon.

“As important as this conversation is,” Alfred interrupted. “I do think we need to discuss another pertinent point of this broader subject, which is Damian himself.”

The other three man looked at him but remained silent.

“You are planning on telling him, are you not?” Alfred asked.

Dick shifted on the couch. “Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Alfred repeated. “Preferably, I would imagine, before Damian finds out for himself.”

“I just need a little time,” Dick said, feeling like a broken record. It was the same thing he’d told Jason. “I don’t know how to tell him.”

“The longer you wait, sir, the more likely that someone else will tell him. Would you prefer that he finds out from you or his mother?” Alfred asked.

Him. Of course Dick would prefer to tell Damian himself. For a multitude of reasons, starting with knowing that Damian would feel betrayed no matter what but he’d be even more betrayed if Dick wasn’t the one to fess up to his own crimes but also because Dick didn’t know how Talia would tell him.

He knew Talia didn’t think all that highly of him. She’d colored Damian’s view on Dick before.

“But what do I say?” Dick asked.

Alfred pursed his lips. “I’m afraid that I have never found myself in this situation. You are going to have to find the words for the moment yourself.”

That’s what scared Dick. It would be easy to blame Bruce for their inability to communicate with each other. And, sure, it was probably partly the patriarch’s fault. But Dick had never really tried to change that. It was just a million times easier to show each other in action, then to put their feelings into words. But actions weren’t going to explain this away, there wasn’t a hug in Dick’s arsenal that he could give Damian that would tell this story in the right tone to make Damian understand.

Damian was going to be upset and Dick hated knowing that there was really nothing he could do to fix that. “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

“You could tell him today after school,” Alfred suggested.

“Putting it off is a bad idea, Dickie,” Jason agreed quietly.

Bruce’s shoulders were stiff. “It’s easy for the two of you to tell him to do it now when it’s not the two of you who have to do it.”

Jason looked up. “Shut up, Bruce. He needs to do this. You can see that, right? Hell, even Alfred can see it. This lie needs to come to an end.”

Dick’s chest felt tight and he dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t know if I can do it today.”

“Do it today, or you’ll be doing this to yourself again tomorrow,” Jason said. “You’ll keep putting it off.”

And then Damian would find out himself.

Dick knew that. He wasn’t stupid. He could see their logic, he could understand how his own brain was tricking him into believing that somehow doing this tomorrow would be easier. It didn’t make it any less difficult to commit to doing it today.

“Fine,” Dick forced out. “I’ll tell him today.”

The faint sound of the front door opening and closing caught the attention of the four men in the den. Then Tim’s voice carried in the big, mostly empty house. “Bruce! Alfred! I’m home!”

Jason checked his phone, frowning at the time. “He’s home early. Doesn’t Replacement have school?”

“Parent teacher conferences,” Alfred supplied. “The students were only required to be there for a half day today.”

“Damian?” Dick asked.

“The younger students’ conferences are next week, sir,” he said.

The sudden explosion of panic in Dick’s chest faded some. His hands were still folded in his lap and he squeezed them before saying, “I have to tell him.”

“I would certainly advise it,” Alfred said.

Bruce remained silent and Dick found his eyes going over to him, waiting for some cue from the man that he was doing the right thing. Unknowingly, behind him, Jason was glaring daggers at the man. Almost daring him to try and stop Dick from doing this. A tick worked in Bruce’s jaw, clearly irritated, before he said, “I’d like a moment with Dick alone.”

“Bull,” Jason said.

Dick reached over and squeezed Jason’s knee again. “Please, Little Wing.”

Jason looked to Alfred for some assistance. Alfred sighed and nodded, glancing at Bruce with a look in his eyes that Dick couldn’t see but Bruce would have no trouble seeing. It made Bruce’s back straighten even more before the two walked out of the room. “I’ll stall Master Timothy until you’re ready, sir.”

Silence. That same silence.

“You told me this was a bad idea in the beginning,” Dick said. “Jason’s… well, he’s Jason. But I don’t blame you for this.”

“Maybe he’s right. I should have put my foot down, refused to go along with it,” Bruce said.

Dick gave him a sort of wry smile. “I knew you wouldn’t, Bruce. No matter how many stupid decisions I make, you’ve never stopped having my back.”

“If you’re not ready, Dick, they can’t make you say anything,” Bruce said.

Dick nodded. That was true. Even if Jason told Damian, Dick could deny it. Bruce would do it if Dick asked, and Alfred would too. Even if he hated it. But, “It’s time for me to grow up and take responsibility for this, Bruce. I should have done it a year ago. But I guess today is as good as any.”

Bruce stood there, silent once more, and when he did move it was jerkier than his usual grace. Stiff, awkward. He put his hand on Dick’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” Dick said. He covered Bruce’s hand with his own.

Muffled voices could be heard from downstairs and Dick only took a moment of that support more before he sighed and stood, proceeding to walk down to meet with Tim.

“What’s the special occasion, Alfred?” He heard Tim ask.

“I was unaware that one needed a special occasion to make cookies, sir,” Alfred replied.

“Yeah, Replacement. How about you just shut up and eat the damn cookie instead of questioning where it came from,” Jason said.

“Language, Master Jason,” Alfred said.

“Did someone die?” Tim asked.

“Jesus Christ. It’s a fucking cookie, Timbo,” Jason said.

“ _Language_ , Master Jason,” Alfred said again.

“Sorry, Alf,” Jason said.

Dick walked into the kitchen. Jason was halfway through the plate of cookies but Tim was still acting like they might reach out and bite him if he took one. Dick didn’t hesitate, wrapping his arms around his little brother and squeezing him close. Tim stiffened in his arms. “Okay. Seriously. Who died?”

“No one,” Dick said.

“Am I dying?” Tim asked.

Dick laughed and squeezed him all the tighter. He pulled back, hands gripping the teen’s shoulders, and asked, “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Are _you_ dying?” Tim asked.

“No one is dead or dying,” Bruce said.

Jason pointed at him, cookie in hand. “But I’d be willing to change that.”

Dick put his arm around Tim’s shoulders. “Come on. We’ll leave them to fight over the cookies. I want to talk to you.”

Tim finally reached out and grabbed a cookie. He glanced around at the other members of his family, suspicion strong as it ever was. Dick always thought he took after Bruce a little too much. “Alright, Dick. If you say so.”

Dick caught the thumbs up from Jason and the sympathetic look from Bruce before he exited the kitchen with Tim in tow. The teen wiggled out of Dick’s hold and looked at him. “Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Timmy,” Dick said.

“I am a certified genius, Dick. I am a detective. I am a vigilante. And I’m your brother,” Tim said. “I know when you’re upset.”

Dick came to a stop. That was almost sweet. Who was he kidding? It was completely sweet. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“Something big,” Dick said.

“Okay,” he repeated.

“For some time now, I’ve been lying to you. And… and some of the others,” Dick said.

Tim’s eyes narrowed a little. “Who?”

“Almost everyone,” Dick replied.

“Everyone but Bruce you mean?” Tim asked.

Dick swallowed heavily. “You sound like Jason.”

“You must be really upset if you’re trying to insult me by comparing me to Jason,” Tim said. “Something I am, in fact, not insulted by for the record.”

Dick dragged his hand down his face. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Tim. I need to tell you something and I can’t do it when you’re trying to get in my head.”

“You can’t seem to do it at all. Just tell me,” Tim said.

Dick could see his defenses rising. Tim was trying to stay calm but Dick had already admitted lying to him, to nearly everyone, and Tim trusted Dick. That’s why even when everyone else was on that list of Tim’s, the one Damian had gotten so upset about, Tim had sworn that Dick would never be.

“I’m trying,” Dick said. “It’s hard, okay?”

“Why is it hard?” Tim asked.

Dick chewed on the inside of his cheek. He tasted blood and swallowed it back. “Because I’ve messed up when it comes to my siblings. Over and over again. I messed up with Jason, thought I finally got it right with you, and then messed up the Robin thing.”

A muscle twitched in Tim’s eye, like he could have done without the reminder. “And lying messed it up again?”

“Yes, I think it did,” Dick said. “I think maybe you would have understood better, back then, why I did what I did if I had been honest earlier.”

“I told you, I’ve moved on,” Tim said.

Dick nodded. “It’s about Damian.”

The cogs in Tim’s head began working, the light shifting in his eyes as he started trying to piece it together himself. Curiosity would get the best of him. Whether it was from wanting to know the truth before Damian or genuine concern for his younger brother, maybe a combination of both, Dick knew he had Tim’s complete attention now. “What is it?”

Dick still didn’t know how to say it, and with that knowledge came back the fear that if he couldn’t figure out how to tell Tim then how the hell was he supposed to tell Damian? But he crossed his arms over his chest and managed to get out, “Bruce and I haven’t been completely honest about Damian’s origin.”

“Meaning?” Tim prompted.

“Meaning,” Dick said, and it felt so ridiculously simple to just _say_ it. “Meaning that Bruce is not Damian’s father.”

Tim’s forehead furrowed in wrinkles. “Of course he is.”

“No, Tim, he’s not,” Dick assured him.

If only.

“I am,” Dick said finally.

Dick had only just brought it up so he knew when Tim’s mind settled on the time, a little over a year ago, when Dick had chosen to make Damian Robin. When, despite the solid relationship he had with his younger brother, Dick had chosen a stranger over Tim.

“But you can’t be,” Tim said. “Talia-“

“Came to Blüdhaven eleven years ago,” Dick said. “We tested it when he got here, Tim. I am Damian’s father.”

Tim took a step back. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Dick looked away. “Because I was scared.” He paused, thinking about what Jason said before. “Because I _am_ scared.”

“Scared of what?” Tim asked.

“Failing,” Dick said. “Scared of running away again. Scared of dropping the ball like I always do and messing things up. Bruce took good care of him.”

“They could barely stand each other’s presence,” Tim said. “And Damian still bent over backwards to make Bruce proud.”

It wasn’t exactly the response Dick had been expecting. “I knew they would find some balance eventually.”

“They were never going to find a balance, Dick,” Tim said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Damian is just another adopted kid for Bruce.”

Dick pulled back. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Jason is right, Dick. Bruce cares for all of us, I’m not saying he doesn’t, but you are something special. And Damian is a brat, a spoiled, rotten, violent, aggressive little demon that needed someone to love him unconditionally and you gave him Bruce who I have never heard say I love you to anyone, including you,” Tim said. “And to be honest, I didn’t get it either. I was really thinking that Bruce was an ass but the truth is, you let Damian think that the person who was supposed to love him most in the world was _Bruce_ and Bruce can’t find it in him to trust Damian because he’s not his son and he’s not you.”

Dick was silent. It hurt. It hurt a lot. He knew all the words were fair. He knew that it was the same thing Alfred was too kind to say and Jason didn’t know how to put into words.

“Have you told him yet?” Tim asked.

Dick shook his head. “No.”

Tim crossed his own arms, looking away. “What changed?”

“What do you mean?” Dick asked.

“I mean that yesterday, you didn’t have a reason to tell me. Today you do. What changed?” he asked.

Dick ran a hand through his hair. “Talia called me a few days ago. Ra’s found out that Damian is mine. He’s upset.”

“It’s Ra’s,” Tim said.

Dick knew the two had interacted while he was off playing Batman. “Well, I can’t hide it anymore.”

Tim shook his head. “Do you know how much easier everything would have been if I had known, Dick?”

Of course he did. “Yes, I do.”

“And you still lied to me,” Tim said. “You still let me think… I don’t even know what I thought. But you knew it was hurting and you just…”

“I’m sorry,” Dick said. “I thought I was making the best decision at the time.”

“I really didn’t think you were capable of something like this,” Tim said. “You were better than this.”

And all of the sudden, Dick snapped. “I made a mistake, Tim! I panicked. I got scared. I had Talia drop my son off on the doorstep and I didn’t know how to be a father to a kid I had missed the first ten years of his life. I don’t have time for a pet. I don’t have time for a movie. And maybe it was a mistake but I’m not perfect, Tim. I’m not Bruce’s Golden Boy and I’m not the perfect son. I’m not a perfect brother. And I’m as far from a perfect father as it could get.” He snapped his jaw shut so hard his teeth clicked together. “I did what I thought was best. Doesn’t mean I was right. Just means that I messed up. And the last thing I need from you is to hear how much I messed up when I have to… I have to tell him… And Damian is… He’s going to hate me.”

His little boy.

“He’s not going to hate you,” Tim said. He reached forward, hugging the taller man, and added, “I promise. He won’t hate you.”

“Why? Because I’m his father? That doesn’t make it okay,” Dick said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Tim said. “He’s not going to hate you because you taught him how to love someone unconditionally. He’s going to be upset, Dick, but he’s not going to hate you.”

Dick let his little brother hug him, returned the embrace, and silently thanked the universe for sending someone to tell him that. “I needed to hear that, Timmy.”

“Anytime.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a lot of pressure revolving around this chapter. To be quite honest, I'm still not sure I did it justice. The solution does not come in this chapter. Everything is not tidy by the time you read the last word, no matter what characters are thinking. Damian, after all, is a ten year old boy. Children do not often make reliable narrators.
> 
> Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy it and that it lives up to at least some of your expectations.

**Gotham: Now**

“How was school today, Master Damian?” Pennyworth asked.

The door to the shiny black car was opened for him and Damian threw his backpack in first before climbing in. Pennyworth shut the door behind him and Damian waited until the elderly man had taken his place in the driver’s seat before replying, “Dreadful as usual. I see little point to my going to the Academy when I received this education and more under Mother’s tutelage.”

“I believe Master Richard has explained this to you numerous times, sir,” Pennyworth replied.

Indeed, Grayson had. “I don’t understand why I need to form bonds with people my own age. It is a pointless waste of time and energy. Energy that could be focused on the mission.”

“Your father’s mission?” Pennyworth asked.

Damian frowned, glancing up at the man who was innocently keeping his eyes on the road. Damian could have sworn, however, that grey eyes flicked back to Damian for a split second. “I suppose. Though his mission is my mission, by birthright.”

“Of course,” Pennyworth said.

Damian prided himself on reading people well. After all, he’d been raised by Talia al Ghul herself and he had learned from her the many ways to know by looking at someone what they were thinking. That ability had been tested thoroughly after coming to Gotham. Father was nearly impossible to read, more similar to a stone than a person. Drake took after Father much in that way and Damian didn’t see Todd often enough to know whether he had learned that ability as well. Grayson was another matter. He wore his emotions on his sleeve but with so many of them, vying for attention, he was cryptic to read in an entirely different way.

Pennyworth should have been the easiest. He was a civilian, after all, or at least the most civilian of them. But he was the most difficult and it had long irritated Damian that he couldn’t read the man.

“Is there something you wish to tell me, Pennyworth?” Damian asked.

“No, sir,” he replied.

Damian didn’t really believe that.

The car rolled up in front of the house and Damian pushed open the door before the butler could even move to exit and open it for him. He had one foot on the gravel driveway before Pennyworth could stop him. “Master Damian?”

Damian sighed and turned around. “Yes, Pennyworth?”

A pair of grey eyes watched him carefully and Damian frowned once again at the look. “Master Damian, second chances mean a great deal in this family.”

Damian pulled back, as if he’d been struck. It was hardly the first time he’d heard that, from Pennyworth and Father and Grayson most of all. Second chances. Moving beyond your past. Doing better. “I am aware…”

“It’s something to keep in mind,” Pennyworth said.

Damian’s fingers curled around the edge of the door before he slammed it shut. The car drove on, Pennyworth taking it to the garage to be kept out of the elements. Damian watched it disappear with some sense of trepidation. Something had happened, there was no explanation. Part of Damian was sure he’d done something wrong.

That was the only reason that Pennyworth would speak about second chances. Reminding him that they had given him so many, reminding him that he was supposed to make the most of them, reminding him that he needed to take more care. Damian didn’t even know what it was that he had done this time.

He sighed and shifted his backpack on his shoulder, twisting the knob to enter the Manor and walking inside.

Someone laughed. Grayson. Damian knew that laugh so well. Emotions, Damian had always thought, were supposed to be saved for the spectacular. Mother had only shown her emotions when it reached a boiling point so high that her body could no longer contain them. Damian had learned to treasure her small smiles and wet cheeks for the rare gifts that they were. Father was much the same, rarely giving any clue to his emotions.

Grayson bubbled with them. No joke was funny, they were hilarious and sure to send the man into fits of laughter that would have him bent over at the stomach and wiping tears from his eyes. No moment of grief was just sad, they were depressing enough to bring Grayson to silence and glistening blue eyes filled with memories only he could see. Grayson acted like he could never run out of emotion, like he could cry for a thousand years and then do it all over again.

Mother, Father, they had made Damian feel like a fool. He could barely contain his rage, his pride. He had forced himself to train at least laughter out of himself. Damian, son of Batman and heir to the al Ghul Empire, should have been the same face of stoicism that his parents were.

He couldn’t remember when he’d started envying Grayson’s careless reactions.

“Grayson?” Damian called.

And just like that, the laughter stopped. Something twisted in the bottom of his gut. What mistake had he made that would cut off even Grayson’s laughter?

His fingers curled around the strap of his backpack over his shoulder and he straightened his shoulders before walking into the kitchen. Four sets of blue eyes stared at him, varying in shade but not intensity. Damian carried his gaze across all of them. Father was ever unreadable. Drake keeping his own expression carefully guarded. Todd, at least, was fairly simple to read. But his eyes held sympathy and, knowing Todd’s reputation for being the family failure, Damian didn’t hold much hope for the situation to be good.

Grayson looked terrified. Absolutely, undeniably terrified. Wide blue eyes that Damian could rarely remember ever seeing on that face, not filled with that kind of fear. He looked like he’d seen a ghost, Damian believed the American saying went.

“I did not expect to see so many people here,” Damian said.

Todd walked across the floor when no one immediately said anything and put his hand on Grayson’s back. Grayson looked almost pained when the man leaned close and muffled sounds that Damian recognized as whispers could be heard.

“You can do this, bluebird,” Todd said as he pulled back.

Damian didn’t understand but, mouth hanging open, couldn’t seem to figure out how to ask.

“Can we talk, Damian?” Dick finally said.

Damian’s stomach twisted again. What had he done? But he nodded, once, and glanced at the others out of some fear.

“Come on,” Dick said, walking forward. “Let’s step into your room.”

**Gotham: Nine Months Earlier**

Mother would be disappointed. Finding him here, staring at the picture of a dead man, searching for… something.

It wasn’t strong. It felt like weakness, and Damian couldn’t even say that it was out of some grief. He hadn’t known the man long enough to grieve him, not really. Even Father’s circus boy, the pretender, had more right to grieve his loss than Damian did.

“Alfred told me I might find you here,” Grayson said.

Damian turned, a biting retort on the tip of his tongue. It cut off into silence when he took in the man’s eyes, bright blue and still so full of grief. Damian turned back around without saying a word and, after a beat, Grayson walked over and sat down on the bench beside him to stare up at the picture too.

Grayson was in the picture. Damian was partially surprised that the man had retained the ability to sit still for that length of time. It was just Father and Grayson and Damian was beginning to realize that all his training and bloodlines and breeding wasn’t going to make him into the perfect son. Father had found his own family, and Damian had shown up too late.

Now it was entirely too late. He would never find a place in the man’s family. Bruce Wayne, the Batman of Gotham, would forever be an unknown to the son he’d left behind.

“I hated those pictures,” Grayson said. Damian started a bit at his sudden speech, but only a bit. Grayson didn’t mention it and Damian was grateful. “And not because you just have to stand there for an hour without moving or because Alfred dressed us up in these awful, terrible tuxes. I hated them because it’s all so fake. This Bruce, that’s what the public sees. He’s rich and handsome and strong and proud. The kind of guy who sits in a tux for two hours and gets his portrait painted. There’s a lot of pictures around here like that but not a lot of the few times he was just a really great father.”

Damian pulled his eyes away from the cold, unfeeling painting and settled them on Grayson. Even grieving, he was smiling, and Damian marveled at how much life was in the man.

“I’m not saying that he was perfect, you know,” Grayson said. He glanced at Damian but then returned his gaze to the painting. “Some of the others might say that I only see the good, I just don’t spend a lot of time focusing on the bad. He was a good father. Built those newspaper boats to push down the streams and made time for a game of basketball every once in a while.”

Damian still didn’t speak, didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to know him,” Grayson said.

Damian’s voice was barely a whisper and maybe not even that. “Me too.”

The corner of Grayson’s mouth quirked up, like Damian’s words had been heard and they pleased him in some way.

“I feel as if I am supposed to miss him,” Damian said, finally. The words felt like they were spilling out but in the right way, like taking a breath of air after being underwater. “But how can I miss someone I never knew? He was my father, my blood, but…”

Grayson folded his hands in his lap. “Family is more than blood, Damian. It’s those things I talked about. Newspaper boats and basketball games. Playing video games together. It’s the memories. And without those memories… it’s okay that you don’t miss him like that. He didn’t get the chance to be your father, you don’t have to pretend that he did.”

That felt strangely relieving.

“Family is who you make memories with,” Grayson said.

The only person Damian had any memories of worth with, was Mother. But the moment was settling heavy in his mind and Damian somehow innately knew that this, too, would be a worthy memory.

**Gotham: Now**

Damian kept a close eye on Grayson, watched him walk around Damian’s bedroom and pay special attention to the drawings Damian had deemed worthy to hang up. Tried not to blush when Grayson stopped in front of one of him, an exercise in capturing motion. Who better to draw for that? The tension built up, brimming under Damian’s skin, before he finally sputtered, “What did I do?”

Grayson turned slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Pennyworth was talking about second chances and you were all upset,” Damian said. “You said you needed to speak with me privately. I don’t know what I did wrong and I refused to be lectured until I know what it was that I did.”

Grayson’s eyes softened. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Damian. I’m sorry we let you think that.”

Damian’s hands were clenching into fists, trying to control his physical reaction to his relief. “I didn’t?”

Grayson sighed and sat down on Damian’s bed, patting the spot on the mattress beside him. “No, Damian. It was never my intent to make you feel that way and I’m sure Alfred didn’t mean to make you feel that way either.”

Damian hesitated but then took the seat, pulling his legs up as he sat beside Grayson. “Then what is this all about?”

Grayson put his hand on the side of Damian’s face and normally Damian would push him away but the man looked so… so sad, so depressed. Grayson looked like he’d lost everything, and Damian would not make him lose this touch too. “I…”

“You what?” Damian asked, when Grayson trailed off into a long silence.

“I’m sorry,” Grayson muttered. He swallowed, looking away for a brief moment before turning his gaze back to Damian. It seemed to take a concentrated effort to meet Damian’s eyes. “You’re a really good kid, Damian. I’ve tried to make you see that, to see the innate goodness in yourself. I wanted you to realize, eventually, that you have so much potential. You’re a hero, after all. At ten years old, you have already put your life on the line and accepted the sacrifice of putting others first. It’s natural for you. It doesn’t faze you the way it did us, Jason, Tim, and I, that your life isn’t normal.”

Grayson dropped his hand from Damian’s face. “You are the kind of son that _anyone_ would be proud to have.” He paused and Damian resisted the urge to fill the silence. “I’m not perfect. I’m so far from perfect. I… I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. And I’ll make a lot more.”

Damian chewed on the inside of his cheek before saying softly, “Making mistakes is the mark of humanity. You taught me that, Grayson.”

Grayson forced a smile, so tight. “I did, didn’t I?” His eyes looked wet again and Damian didn’t know how to fix this, how to make it better. “It’s okay to be upset when someone makes a mistake. It’s okay to dislike them for what they did. But second chances are… Second chances are important, and that’s what Alfred was trying to say earlier. When I make a mistake, all I ever want is for you to give me another chance.”

“Of course, Grayson,” Damian assured him.

Grayson shook his head. “Don’t say that. Not yet.”

Yet?

Damian waited for Grayson to go on. He did, after adjusting his position on the bed. “I love you, Damian.”

Damian’s mouth gaped open and he had the distinct feeling that he looked like a fish. He swallowed, tongue feeling thick in his mouth. “I… I… too.” He finished weakly and then cursed himself. He should have been able to do that for Grayson.

Grayson nodded and closed his eyes. Damian opened his mouth to speak but Grayson cut him off. “When you came to us, Damian, we…”

He broke off. The room fell silent.

Grayson cursed and corrected, “ _I_ lied to you.”

Damian’s chest felt tight. Grayson didn’t lie to him, never lied to him.

“I lied,” Grayson repeated. “I told you… I let you believe that you were his son, Damian. I told you that you were Bruce’s son. And that was a lie.”

“I don’t understand,” Damian said.

“Bruce isn’t your father,” Grayson said, opening his eyes again. “I am.”

**Gotham: Three Months Earlier**

Grayson was sitting on the edge of a building, one foot dangling off the edge and with his arm resting on the knee of the other. He appeared to be watching the skyline as the last shades of purple and pink faded into the bluish black stretch of the night sky. “This isn’t your sector, Robin.”

Damian was always surprised when Grayson did that, seemed to just know where he was.

“Do you want me to leave?” Damian asked.

Grayson turned to look at him, staring for a long moment, and then he sighed. He lowered the other leg to dangle off the ledge and pat the spot beside him. “No, you don’t have to leave. Come over here.”

Damian didn’t argue about the orders, not anymore. He just took the seat beside Grayson and dangled his own legs off the edge.

“What happened?” Grayson asked.

Damian looked down. Four stories below, the sidewalk was empty. A newspaper got caught in the wind and carted off down the street. “We got into another argument.”

“What about this time?” Grayson asked.

“The same thing as always,” Damian muttered. “I want him to trust me and he can’t do it.”

Grayson nodded. “Batman isn’t a very trusting man, Robin.”

“He was when you were Batman,” Damian said, bitterness in his tone.

“It’s always been harder for him,” Grayson replied, not willing to play Damian’s word games. “You just need to give it some time.”

“You trusted me from the very beginning,” Damian said.

Grayson didn’t say anything to that. In fact, he looked away and Damian couldn’t even try to read his face. “It’s going to take time, Robin. We figured out how to work together, didn’t we? And you didn’t like me very much in the beginning either.”

“He was an easier man to look up to when he was dead,” Damian spat.

Grayson glanced at Damian and then back to the city. “Most people are.”

Damian dug gloved fingers against the concrete ledge. “I don’t like working with him, Nightwing.”

He missed Grayson. They had been the best team.

“He’s good for you,” Grayson pushed. “He’s your father.”

“He’s an asshole,” Damian muttered.

Grayson snorted. “Well, yes. That too.”

“I miss you,” Damian said.

Grayson’s lips thinned. “I’m right here.”

“It’s not the same,” Damian said.

Grayson said nothing.

**Gotham: Now**

“You can’t be,” Damian said.

“Your mother came to Blüdhaven and things happened,” Grayson said, trying to avoid the details. “I didn’t know about you until you came to Gotham.”

“Mother said-“

“She knew that if Ra’s figured out her mistake, he would be furious. Letting everyone believe that you were Bruce’s son was the only way to keep you and her safe,” Grayson said.

Damian stood. “You’re lying!”

Grayson didn’t move from his place on the bed but Damian could see the pain overwhelming him again. “I have no reason to lie about this, Damian.”

But he had to be lying. Father was… And Damian had… Everything he’d ever known revolved around being…

“You’re wrong,” Damian said, voice cracking in the process. Stoicism. His Father could be grieving and still-

_Wayne_ could be grieving and not show the slightest pain. _Mother_ had rarely given him a smile. But _Grayson_ was bubbling with emotion. He was anger when provoked and sadness when left alone for too long and laughter for nothing but the sun shining on his face. _Grayson_ could control his emotions no more than he could move a mountain.

A trait that Damian had inherited from him.

“You lied to me,” Damian said. Grayson didn’t say anything. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I was scared,” Grayson said. The admission was hard for him if the flinch was anything to go by.

“He could barely stand me around. My Mother sent assassins after me. I thought there was something wrong with me!” Damian shouted at him.

Dick sucked in a sharp breath. “There was nothing wrong with you, Damian. I told you that after he died. We talked about that.”

“And then you left me too!” Damian yelled. His chest hurt. His eyes were watering. For the first time in his life, Damian didn’t care. He knew his face was red from screaming, knew his body was trembling. “It felt like no one wanted me!”

And now Damian found out, no one really did.

“What’s wrong with me?” Damian demanded.

Grayson finally stood up, walked over and put his hands on Damian’s shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Then why does no one want me?” he asked.

Arms wrapped around him, Grayson’s hugs were strong but they couldn’t fix this. The words were whispered next to his ear. “I just wanted to give you the best chance I could.”

“By leaving me with someone else?” Damian asked. Tears were falling and he didn’t wipe them away like he would have before. “What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Grayson assured him again, petting the back of his hair and still squeezing him in a hug with the other arm. “I’m sorry.”

Damian couldn’t respond anymore. He was too busy crying, too busy trying not to choke on his sobs.

“I’m so sorry,” Grayson said. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

But it did hurt. Why had Grayson lied?

“There’s nothing wrong with you, kiddo. You’re a great son,” Grayson told him. “That didn’t change for me, just because you didn’t know. I’ve always been proud of you. I’ve always loved you. You’re perfect and you always have been.”

“Why?” Damian croaked.

Grayson pressed his forehead against his shoulder. “Because I didn’t want to let you down.”

Damian reached up, finally, and wrapped his arms around Grayson in response. Damian didn’t stop crying, he didn’t even try to, just held Grayson and let the man hold him. At some point, Grayson started rubbing his back and shortly after Damian’s heart wrenching sobs turned into soft hiccups. Grayson picked him up and wrapped Damian’s legs around his waist. It felt good to fall apart and have Grayson hold him together.

Damian wasn’t sure when they’d walked into the bathroom but Grayson set him on the edge of the sink. He left him there for a moment, feet dangling off the edge, and came back with a damp washcloth. Damian’s head was tilted up and then Grayson wiped his cheeks with the washcloth, ridding his skin of the salty tears and helping to clear up his face. He worked in silence, wiping Damian’s nose that he’d let run and stripping him of the shirt he’d gotten wet with all his crying. He brought another one out and helped Damian into it. And Damian needed the help, hands shaking and so exhausted from crying that he wouldn’t have even had the energy to put it on alone. Fingers gently brushed the hair off of Damian’s forehead and Grayson pressed a kiss there instead. “I’m really sorry, Damian.”

“I know,” Damian said.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me-“

“You’re forgiven,” he said.

Grayson was cut off into speechlessness. He smiled weakly and brushed his fingers over Damian’s cheek. “It’s okay if you’re not ready or if you’re never ready.”

“You are forgiven,” Damian said again. “I forgive you. It was wrong. You should have told me. I still don’t… understand why you did it.” He paused. “Second chances are important. After all the chances you’ve given me, why wouldn’t I do the same for you?”

Grayson cupped Damian’s cheek, looking into red rimmed eyes. “It’s okay if you change your mind about that later.”

Damian spoke softly. “Things are going to change now, right?”

“Only as much as you want them to,” Grayson said.

“I want everything to be real this time,” Damian said. “I want to move in with you.”

Grayson nodded but Damian caught the way he swallowed hard, like he was still scared. “If that’s what you want.”

“Does Fa-“ Damian cut off and then corrected himself. “Does Wayne know?”

Grayson hesitated and then nodded. “Yes, he does.”

Damian had figured as much. “Do the others know?”

Grayson brushed fingers over his cheek again. “Yes. The rest of them only just found out recently. Jason overheard me talking to your mother.”

Damian’s eyes sharpened. “Why were you talking to Mother?”

Grayson sighed, stepping back a little. Damian missed his closeness. “Your grandfather found out about her lies. We think you might be in danger.”

“I’m not the heir he wanted,” Damian said. At least now, it was because of blood and heritage. Before, he’d only been a failure for his own actions. To everyone except Grayson.

“We’re going to protect you,” Grayson said.

Damian was sure of it. Grayson had always done everything he could to protect Damian.

That thought warred with his new knowledge, but it settled on Grayson’s side.

“I want you to explain to me,” Damian said. “One day. You have to tell me why.”

Grayson swallowed hard again but nodded. “Okay.”

“Not today,” Damian said. Today, he wanted to forgive Grayson. Today, he wanted to let his… his father, hold him in his arms. Today was not going to be ruined by the past. It was all going to be okay now. Everything changed but it would all work out for the best.

After all, Damian had always loved Grayson best.

Second chances were important. Grayson had given him so many, the very least Damian could do was forgive Grayson this once. Besides, it was fixed now. Why would Damian selfishly drag it out any longer?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry at how long this chapter took. It actually only took nine or ten days which I guess isn't super long but it's long for me. So I apologize. I had some writer's block and some life came up.
> 
> You have all been such fantastic readers and I want to give a special thanks especially to those who have commented and left such kind words. It's those comments that keep me writing. So thank you.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

**Gotham: Now**

Dick Grayson was an idiot but he was the idiot that Jason was madly in love with.

It didn’t make him any less of an idiot.

Nothing was going to change, or at least that’s what Dick kept telling him. Nothing would change. Except that everything was changing, and Dick was too much of an idiot to see it. Or rather he was so deep in denial that he refused to admit that his world was changing.

Either way, Jason was laying on his back beneath pieces of a bed to put together in Dick’s spare room while Dick juggled the instructions and the next piece. Tim walked in with Bruce, both of them sighing as they looked at the rest of the shit that Dick had been storing in here. “You guys still aren’t done with the bed?”

“We’re trying,” Jason muttered, words distorted by the screwdriver crosswise between his lips.

“I’m pretty sure the two of you are making it harder than it looks so you don’t have to carry any of this shit outside,” Tim said.

Bruce crossed his arms and Jason still struggled to wrap his head around jeans and t-shirt Bruce. It never stopped being uncomfortable to not see the man in some kind of suit, be it business or Bat. “Do you need half of this stuff, Dick?”

“I don’t know,” Dick said, eyes narrowed at the instructions. “Jay, I think you’re putting this piece on backwards.”

Jason turned his head and spit out the screwdriver. “You _told_ me to put it on like this!”

“I know,” Dick said. Two blue eyes glanced at Jason and he knew his expression was softening because there was so much anxiety in those eyes, so much fear.

This was hard for him, more so now than it had been three days ago when Damian had asked him to let him move in. More so now than when Dick had told Jason the next day.

More so than when Dick had called the moving company.

A ball of black fur darted between Bruce’s legs, leapt over the skeleton of the bed, bounced off Jason’s face, and clawed up Dick’s pant legs to crawl up before Dick cursed and pulled the cat off to cradle him in his arms. The instructions, let go in Dick’s momentary pain, fluttered down onto Jason’s lap.

“Alfred!” Damian called, walking into the room and looking around before spotting the cat purring as Dick scratched between its ears. “Sorry, Father.”

“It’s fine.”

The four men glanced at each other at the reply said in unison by Dick and Bruce. Jason and Tim shared a look and then Jason glanced at Damian who was steadfastly ignoring the mistake.

Looked like denial was genetic.

“Have any of you actually been working in here?” Damian questioned, looking around at the room that Jason had thought was actually starting to look better. “It might actually look worse than when we started this morning.”

Tim’s face went red, lips parting to start in on the brat, and Bruce calmly guided the teen out of the room.

“Damian, this is a lot of work and we’ve all been struggling to get it done since early this morning,” Dick said softly.

“Too early,” Jason muttered. Dick could be a morning person, good for him, but Jason was more into waking up so that lunch was the first meal of the day.

“I haven’t said anything about you not really helping because I know you’re keeping an eye on Alfred and Titus but some appreciation wouldn’t be out of the question,” Dick said.

Their eyes were the same color. Well, they’d all originally had blue eyes and the only reason that Jason didn’t still was because the Pit had permanently shaded them with a tinge of green. Enough that teal was more apt than blue now. But Dick and Damian’s were an almost _identical_ shade of blue. Jason wondered why he’d never noticed that before.

“If you and Wayne hadn’t lied, assistance in moving wouldn’t be necessary now,” Damian replied. It was smooth, cool. No anger in his tone.

Jason held his breath at the lost look on Dick’s face. Lips parted and Jason wanted to do something, say something, step in and help. He just didn’t know what to do and the silence filled the room before Dick deflated a little. “Why don’t you go check on Titus, Damian? Jason and I need to get this bed done.”

“Alright, Father,” Damian replied, taking the cat out of Dick’s arms and walking away.

Dick watched him go and dragged a hand through his hair. Jason sighed softly and wiggled out from under the bed. He climbed to his feet and wrapped his arm around Dick’s waist, pulling him back against him. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure about that?” Dick asked.

“Yes,” Jason muttered, kissing Dick’s neck. He caught his boyfriend’s chin and turned him to meet his gaze. “It’s just going to take some time.”

“How do you know?” Dick asked.

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know. I just do.”

“That Lazarus Pit give you premonitions too?” Dick asked. He laid his forehead against Jason’s shoulder and the younger man slid his fingers into Dick’s hair in response. “I just froze.”

“You’re allowed to just freeze,” Jason said softly.

Dick chuckled, bitter and harsh. Didn’t lift his head up. “No, I’m not. I already fucked this up once, Little Wing.”

Jason twirled them around so he could kick the door shut and hoped Tim and Bruce took the hint. He pressed a kiss to Dick’s temple and held him. “You can’t beat yourself up for this forever.”

“What happened to lying to your fucking face?” Dick asked.

“I’m still not happy about that,” Jason admitted. “But I’ve cooled down some and I know that if someone dropped a ten year old off on my doorstep and told me it was mine… well, I can’t tell you what I would do. It’s easy for us to make judgements but we weren’t in your position.”

That was hard to admit. It was easier just to dislike Dick for this.

“I wasn’t in your position,” Jason said. “I can’t even begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been to find out the way you did.”

The tension slowly released some from Dick’s shoulders and the arms around Jason squeezed a little tighter. “I needed to hear that.”

“I know you did,” Jason said.

Dick didn’t let go and Jason hadn’t really expected him to. Dick needed this. He needed the tactile sensation, needed to hold and be held and feel the pressure and warmth of another body. He was so hands on all the time. Jason had spent a long time running from this, running from touch.

Dick had made touch feel safe again.

Jason stroked his hair gently. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Dick said, words mumbled into Jason’s shirt.

A scratching noise brought Dick’s head up and he turned towards the door before a paw slipped under the crack. Jason snorted. “I think that cat likes you.”

Dick’s eyes still had too much emotion in them, but Jason had thought that a lot. Dick always seemed like a raw nerve to Jason, like he couldn’t cover up his emotions. “That was one thing that never surprised me. I always loved the circus animals. He loved Zitka when I took Damian to see Haly’s.”

“Leave Father and Todd alone, Alfred,” Damian’s voice came through the door and then the paw abruptly disappeared.

“Feel good to get it off your chest?” Jason asked. Dick had to have noticed the similarities but kept them quiet, close to his heart. It must have been hard.

Dick nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

~~~

Damian looked incredibly normal in Dick’s guest bedroom.

_Damian’s_ bedroom now.

Dick wasn’t going to throw up again. Not now. He had last night when Jason had stayed over after Dick’s panic attack, rubbing Dick’s back as he knelt on the bathroom floor and holding out a water bottle between fits of sickness.

Torture. Threats of death. Serious injury. Grief. Dick could handle anything life threw at him but Damian moving in had him losing his lunch like he’d had a bad batch of raw cookie dough.

The boy walked around the now cleared out room. Dick’s spare stuff, miscellaneous crap really, had been shoved into a different hole to be cleaned out in the distant future and replaced with a bed and a dresser. A desk with a lamp. Damian’s art had been carefully removed from the Manor walls and tacked onto Dick’s walls instead.

Once again, Dick found his eyes going to the one of him. He could remember Damian coming down one day with his sketchbook while Dick was on the steady rings. He’d asked the boy what he was doing to which he’d gotten a quiet, “Tt,” and no further response.

As long as Damian didn’t look like he was trying to blow anything up, Dick usually didn’t pester him. So he’d dropped it.

Besides, it wasn’t hard to figure out. Dick had hoped to see the artwork but when Damian had eventually gotten up an hour or two later, Dick had assumed that Damian would show him if he wanted to. It had been surprising to see it up on Damian’s wall later.

He was a very talented artist. Something he had not inherited from Dick who could manage a rather attractive stick person and nothing else, and as far as Dick knew Talia was no Picasso either.

That was all Damian.

“I’ve gotten better since then,” Damian said.

Dick looked down at him. “Oh?”

Damian nodded, pointing to lines on the drawing. “Motion is hard to catch. After you, I drew some of the birds in Pennyworth’s garden.” His fingers moved over to a pencil drawing of birds flying over the garden and then back to his drawing of Dick. “See the difference? That’s how you move. More like a bird than my other attempts at catching human form.”

Dick’s lips quirked. “My mom used to call me her little robin.”

“You used to call me your Robin,” Damian said. “When you were Batman.”

And, occasionally, after.

Dick’s smile grew a little wider, softer. “Yeah, I did. I couldn’t tell you that you were mine any other way than that, not after I spoke with your mother.”

Damian was silent, eyes drifting away from the drawing of Dick on the wall back to the birds. “What was she like?”

“Your mother? I can’t honestly tell you anything you don’t already know,” Dick said. His cheeks colored slightly. “It wasn’t, um… It wasn’t exactly a romance, Damian.”

The boy’s nose scrunched up. “I was referring to my grandmother.”

Dick’s eyes popped open and then grew soft. “Oh.” He jerked his chin over to the door and led Damian down to his bedroom, pulling open the closet door and pulling down a box. Inside was Dick’s old, original circus costume. Old photos. Mementos from another lifetime. He pulled out the photos and went through them before finding one of the three of them in costume, dolled up in makeup before the big show. He handed it over to Damian who took it in small fingers. “She was amazing. Her name was Mary and she was beautiful. She’s where we get the blue eyes from. My dad’s eyes were closer to gray. She was caring and loving. Affectionate.”

He smiled at the photo. “She could be a real spitfire when she was angry though. Dad used to say that. Dick, boy, when you find a true love she’s going to be a spitfire. Graysons find their love in the flames.”

“She’s very beautiful,” Damian agreed. “You look a lot like her.”

Dick nodded. “Always have.” He tapped the man in the photo. “You, on the other hand, what you haven’t gotten from your mother’s side seemed to come from my dad. He was a little more rugged than I’ve ever been. You have his jaw. His nose. You have my family’s coloring, a little darker maybe but damn near close.”

Damian hadn’t often asked about Dick’s family and Dick had always been grateful. He’d always been terrified that Damian would look and see a similarity and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down. “I wish I could have met them.”

Dick laid his arm over Damian’s shoulders. “I wish you could have met them too. Mom would have really loved you. Dad too, of course, but Mom would have just absolutely adored you. I think part of her always wanted a bigger family, even if they couldn’t have one.”

“Why not?” Damian asked.

Dick sighed. “Well, kids are expensive and they make travelling very difficult. And travelling in a circus is a lot of work. Adding kids to that is difficult. Most performers don’t have children.”

Damian handed the photograph back and Dick put it back in the box. “Would I have performed at the circus?”

Dick glanced at him and seemed to struggle through that for a moment. “Well, if they hadn’t died I probably would have never met your mother.”

“But you would have met someone, right?” Damian asked.

Dick nodded, slowly. “I suppose. Maybe.”

“And maybe had a baby,” Damian said. “Would that baby have performed in the circus?”

“Well, I suppose it’s likely. I would have continued with the circus, probably, so you would have been raised there. It can be addicting, that lifestyle,” Dick said. “It’s why it’s still hard for me to set down roots anywhere.”

“I like travelling,” Damian said.

“There are some beautiful places in the world,” Dick agreed. “When things settle down, we could take some time to go see them.”

Damian nodded. “I would like that.”

Dick smiled tight and then put the box back in his closet, sensing an end to the conversation. At least tonight.

The fact that Damian was still standing there when Dick turned around came as a small surprise, as did the way he shuffled from foot to foot. Stiffly, he walked over and wrapped his arms around Dick’s waist. Even startled, Dick was quick to return the embrace. “Goodnight, Father.”

“Goodnight, Damian,” Dick said softly.

Damian let the embrace last a few seconds longer before he let go and quickly left the room. Dick didn’t move until he heard Damian’s door close down the hall. He swallowed, grabbed the handle to his own door and started to close it before leaving it open a crack, not wanting to be unable to hear Damian if the boy needed something.

He crawled into bed and shut off the light.

**Gotham: Two Days Later**

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Grayson asked.

Damian was seated in the front seat of the car, phone on his lap, and elbow propped on the edge of the window. “I’m sure, Father.”

Grayson gave one of those long suffering sighs. If Damian had to guess, it was not Damian who Grayson did not believe was ready for this but himself. But that, in part, was one of the reasons that Damian was so keen on seeing his mother again.

After all, the last time that Grayson and Mother had been in the same room that he had seen was after Mother had wired him into her control. Grayson had been furious and Mother had allowed him to leave with “his circus boy”.

Now, Damian wondered if that was all it had been.

The hotel was lavish. Damian had expected as much. Mother could live off the earth, weather the worst environment with nothing but her wits about her, but at the end of the day she would rather take the plush environment of a five star hotel over a hovel.

Grayson handed the valet the keys a bill from his wallet that Damian couldn’t see before they both walked in. Mother was awaiting them, having been forewarned of their visit. Her eyes took in the two of them, walking side by side, as they approached. “Richard. Damian.”

“Mother,” Damian replied.

Grayson didn’t respond. He just continued looking around the hotel lobby and before glancing back at Mother. Her eyes never left her son. “Come up to my room?”

Damian felt Grayson tense, in the same way he’d learned how to feel the man’s movements. Working as his partner, Damian had learned to adjust his fighting style to accommodate for Grayson. He’d trained himself to sense the man’s emotions and predict his movements based on them. At some point, it had become instinctual for them to simply work around each other.

Silently, he’d been so proud of the accomplishment.

“Our goals are the same for now,” Mother said, like she knew the same thing that Damian did.

“Yeah. For now,” Grayson said. Damian could see a tick in his jaw.

They followed her across the lobby to where the elevators were and stepped on before she chose a floor. It was empty save for the three of them and Mother took the opportunity to speak. “I had assumed that you would wait to tell him until I was present.”

Grayson arched an eyebrow, glancing at her. “What would give you that impression?”

“He is my son,” Mother replied.

Grayson snorted before responding nearly too quiet for Damian to hear. “He was my son when you decided to hide that fact from me for ten years.”

Mother was silent on that point.

The elevator came to a smooth stop and then dinged before opening and she led them down the hallways past expensive looking floral art to a room that she opened with a keycard. Grayson held the door so that she and Damian could walk in and then followed behind them. The door closed with a click.

“It’s good to see you, my child,” Mother said, stroking her fingers through his hair.

Damian, admittedly, had missed her as well. It seemed to matter quite little, in the moment, that she had turned on him, cast him out, and sent assassins after him and his father. As Grayson had taught him, family was still everything and he had cared for her for far too long to have the feelings disappear. But he didn’t tell her that, just looked up at her with bright blue eyes carrying too much pain.

Her own brown eyes grew harder, defensive. “I did what was necessary to protect the both of you.”

Damian wasn’t fooled. “You did what was necessary to protect yourself.”

“Toying with his head already?” Mother asked Grayson whose shoulders stiffened at the insult. “Just like Bruce after all.”

“Father didn’t toy with my mind, Mother,” Damian said. “You lied to me.”

“So did Richard,” Mother said.

Damian glanced at Grayson who was watching their interactions with stone faced silence. His eyes went back to his mother. “I have forgiven him.”

“But not me?” Mother asked.

Damian had struggled with that knowledge. He had a hundred justifications for it, carefully organized in his mind, and all of them gave him clear cut logic for why it was okay to forgive Grayson but not Mother. “Not you.”

“Why?” Mother demanded.

Because Grayson seemed repentant and Mother still stood by her decision. Though Grayson stood by his at times too. Or because Grayson had been there the last few years and Mother had abandoned him. But Grayson had left him in the hands of Wayne for a time when the man had come back from his supposed death.

“Because Father believes in second chances,” Damian said. “I owe him one for giving me so many.”

Mother hummed in response, her eyes flicking over to Grayson before she straightened once more.

“I would assume you’ve come to do more than glare at me, Richard,” Mother said.

Grayson crossed his arms over his chest and Damian thought he saw his mother appraise the man. “I needed to speak with you and…”

“And?” Mother prompted.

The tick was back in Grayson’s jaw. “Damian wanted to come with me.”

“What did you need to speak with me about?” Mother asked.

“Bruce doesn’t want any of us to kill Ra’s,” Grayson said.

Mother laughed. “Are you honestly surprised?”

“No,” Grayson admitted.

Mother shrugged. “I have no alternatives for you. I gave you options, to run or to kill him and if you will not do one than I wish you the best for as long as you can run from hi-“

“I didn’t say that we weren’t going to kill him,” Grayson cut her off. His eyes flashed with irritation. “I said that Bruce didn’t want us to do it.”

Mother’s eyes were on Grayson again, a new look. Damian understood. He, too, was watching Grayson carefully.

“There isn’t another option to keep him safe,” Grayson said. “But without Bruce’s assistance, I need help with a plan and no one knows your father as well as you do.”

Mother’s lips thinned. “Indeed.”

“What?” Grayson demanded.

“I find it hard to believe that you will break your morals. Damian’s life is too precious for you to risk by threatening him only to fail in the final moments,” Mother said.

Damian wondered if she really thought that, or if she was simply playing on Grayson’s emotions. Mother had never described him as precious.

“I am not going to back out, if that’s what you’re implying,” Grayson said.

“And what of your code?” Mother questioned.

Grayson looked at Damian who was gaping at him silently. “Damian is more important.”

It wasn’t going to be that easy. Grayson was so good. Damian had warred between finding Grayson’s goodness foolish and wanting to be just like him. But it was impossible to imagine him as a killer.

Mother’s back abruptly straightened and Damian felt himself tense right after, knowing her instincts were usually right and that had his nerves standing on end. “There’s someone outside.” She turned a dark glare to Grayson. “Did you let someone follow you here?”

“No,” Grayson snapped, moving towards Damian. “Perhaps you should have kept a lower profile than a five star hotel.”

They really did fight like a couple of parents. In a weird way, Damian was almost warmed by the thought.

Glass shattered and Damian covered his face to avoid pieces of it getting in his face, his eyes. Hands grabbed his arms as Grayson covered him from the shattering glass.

Mother reached for a knife hidden on her person, striking out against the assassins. Two of them, wearing dark clothes and hiding their faces.

“Ninjas,” Grayson muttered. “Ninjas are being sent to kill us.”

“And they will succeed if you stand there and do nothing,” Mother replied.

“Damian?” Grayson asked.

He didn’t even have to really ask a question, if there even was one in particular the name was supposed to mean. It was, “Are you okay?” and it was, “Do you think you can handle this?” and it was, “Are you ready?” all at the same time.

And Damian didn’t answer any of those questions, just ran up onto the plush hotel couch and pushed off the back to attack one of the assailants from behind. It seemed to be enough for Grayson who turned just in time for the other assailant to reach for him. He brought a strike down on the forearm and then struck the attacker under the jaw with enough force to send him stumbling back into the wall.

Mother threw her knife and it struck the attacker in the chest. They reached for it, taking a stumbling step forward before falling to the ground.

The other assailant, perhaps realizing they were clearly outmatched, used the opportunity to run for the window. Mother grabbed another knife and threw it.

“No!” Damian screamed, as Grayson stepped in the way.

Grayson’s reflexes were sound and he caught the knife before it could do him any damage. He turned, barely catching the assassin as they darted for the window. He grabbed a handful of dark fabric and threw them to the floor. They moved quickly to get up and Damian slammed his foot down on their shoulder. “Don’t move.”

Mother walked across the carpet, leaving a trail of bloody footprints when her path took her through the growing puddle of blood around the corpse lying on the floor. He hand wrapped around the knife in Grayson’s hand before yanking it out of his grasp. “How dare you?”

Grayson scoffed. “Did you think I was going to stand by and let you kill them?” Before she could respond he turned back to the assassin and pulled the mask off. “Did Ra’s send you?”

Brown eyes glared at him and Grayson’s lips thinned. “I asked you a question.”

Still no response.

“Allow me to get our answers, Richard,” Talia ordered.

Grayson ignored her. “I’m going to ask one more time. Then the kid and I are each going to grab a foot and hang you out of that window so the blood rushes to your head. Maybe you remember first. Maybe my arms get tired.”

Silence.

Grayson shrugged, grabbing the man’s ankle the man’s weight with ease. The man scowled. “He warned us that you would not kill, Mr. Grayson.”

Damian’s heart squeezed the same way it always did. The refusal to kill, the absolute unwillingness to ever cross that line, made his family weak. As much as he stood by their codes, he’d been raised with different beliefs and was sure there would always be a part of him that questioned it. In this moment, he was questioning it.

Mother rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to step in when Grayson laughed. He dropped the man’s foot and turned. “Are you serious?”

Even Mother was shocked into silence.

“You came here to kill my son. Now, I hate Talia and I put my life on the line far too often to care when you come after the two of us but you came after my son,” Dick said. “All of the Batman’s rules aren’t going to stop me from making sure you never pose a threat to him again.”

Doubt flashed in the man’s eyes but he stayed silent.

Grayson reached for his foot again.

“He put a contract on your head.” At last. Damian prided himself on the fact that he thought he was the only person who would have noticed the slight easing of the tension in Grayson’s body. “You, the woman, and the child.”

“So he didn’t send you,” Grayson said.

“No. I am but one of undoubtedly many coming,” he replied.

It made sense to Damian. The attacker was not well skilled. A more serious, trained assassin would have not chosen such an opportunity. They would attack with a well thought out plan and by drawing their prey into a situation of the predator’s design.

Mother’s room was her own territory.

“Anything else you want to tell me?” Grayson asked.

“No,” he replied.

“Good,” Mother said. Grayson looked up but it was too late to stop her from slashing the blade across the man’s throat.

“Talia!” Grayson yelled.

Damian stepped back as blood spurted from the cut and the man tried to cover it with his hands. Specks still landed on the bottom of his jeans, staining small spots red.

“If you cannot stand by and watch me kill to protect our son, how do you expect to kill my father to protect him?” Mother demanded.

“It will be different,” Grayson said.

“Why? How will you use the code to justify his death?” Mother asked.

Grayson’s jaw clenched.

Damian knew he couldn’t. He knew that Grayson still hadn’t figured out how he was going to do it, only that he knew he was going to have to. And Damian had felt guilt over so many things, this was just another. He did not want to be the reason that Grayson sullied his hands.

“You didn’t have to kill these people,” Grayson said.

Mother came over and rested her hand on Damian’s shoulder. She left more bloody foot prints on the carpet as she did. “I left him in your care, Richard. Do not make me regret that decision.”

“Talia-“ Grayson started.

“Do not make me take back that decision,” Mother warned.

Grayson’s eyes hardened. “If you had any plans to take him back, you would have done it a long time ago.”

“I will if you cannot be trusted to keep him safe,” Mother said.

“Father is more than capable,” Damian said, finding his voice.

“You’re not going to take him away from me, Talia,” Grayson said.

Mother let go of Damian’s shoulder. “You couldn’t stop me if I tried.”

“You’re _not_ going to take him away from me,” Grayson repeated.

Mother walked over and cupped Grayson’s cheek. He ripped away from her touch and Damian could see a bloody handprint left there. “Hold tight to that anger when you plunge a sword through Father’s heart.”

~~~

Damian was silent from his place in the bathroom doorway. Grayson was bent over the sink, splashing water on his face. The blood was long gone but from the look in his eyes, Grayson didn’t feel that way. He stood and grabbed the towel hanging off a little ring on the wall, wiping off his face and blindly throwing it back towards the hamper. It missed and hit the wall, sliding down onto the tiled floor with the rest of the laundry Grayson couldn’t be bothered to actually get in the wicker hamper.

“You need something, Damian?” Grayson asked.

“No,” Damian said.

Grayson nodded and ran a hand through his hair. He smiled but it was tight and it didn’t reach his eyes. Damian would know. He’d seen the attempt before in the mirror. “I’m fine, kiddo.”

“Mother is wrong,” Damian said. “You don’t have to kill him.”

Grayson’s smile faded. “You sound like Bruce.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Damian said. He didn’t want to sound like Wayne. He wasn’t Wayne’s son. “I mean, there are others. People who could kill him so you don’t have to.”

“Bruce isn’t going to kill him, neither is Talia,” Dick said.

“I was referring to myself,” Damian said. He sniffed. “Maybe Todd.”

Dick’s eyes widened. “Damian, you aren’t going to kill anybody. Okay? And Jason has enough blood on his hands without me adding to it. I can do this.”

No, Grayson couldn’t.

“What if I don’t want you to?” Damian asked. It would change him. It would ruin all the parts of Grayson that made him special. It would destroy some of the happiness inside of him.

Grayson’s eyes grew tight and hard before he looked away. “I have to keep you safe, Damian.”

“But-“ Damian started.

“Damian! I don’t want to hear any more about this,” Grayson snapped. “I’m your father. I make the decisions.”

Damian was silent as every defense rose. He bared his teeth and snapped back, “And thus far you’ve proven to be so accomplished in making those decisions, right?”

Grayson winced and it made Damian feel a little better. It also made him feel a little worse.

Damian turned on his heel and walked to his room, slamming the door shut. He didn’t know if it was better or worse that Grayson never came after him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait on this one. I started another fic, based loosely on Hades and Persephone that demanded I write the first chapter and knocked out a couple of one shots. It all helped enough to get me past my writer's block on here to get out Chapter Nine.
> 
> This might be another weird chapter but I think it sort of sets the tone for how most of the fic will be written from this point.
> 
> Or maybe not. To be honest, I don't usually know what the chapter is about until I'm 1-2K into it and I'm talking to KaRaEa and drowning_in_otps about what I'm doing. So please enjoy.

**Gotham: Now**

Date night. Dick’s idea. Jason didn’t know what to think about it. They had never done something as civilian as date night. Rather, most of their dates stemmed from slow nights on patrols and huddling on the couch together when one or both of them was hurt too badly to be on their own.

Jason had spent a long time on his own but he knew from experience that it was better to have company when you had a concussion than try to take care of it yourself. And it was better to have Dick watching over him than anyone else.

Except maybe Roy but Roy didn’t kiss his forehead and curl around him and fall asleep halfway through movies the way Dick did.

When they _had_ gone out it was usually out of necessity. Dick was taking Damian to the zoo or they were meeting Tim for lunch or that one time when Jason had for some godforsaken reason agreed to go on a family trip to the amusement park. Never had Jason shown up at a preplanned time worrying about whether or not he’d dressed nice enough for the situation.

It wasn’t like Jason had never dated anyone but it was the first time in a long time that he could say he’d really cared about the person he was going with.

Dick opened the door with a smile, hair messy in that perfect way, and Jason didn’t wait for him to say hello to wrap one hand around his waist and pull him closer. Their lips met and parted and Dick drove his tongue into Jason’s mouth.

Someone cleared their throat and Jason pulled back to find Damian glaring from the center of the living room. “Could you at least wait to do that until _after_ you abandon me?”

“I’m not abandoning you, Damian,” Dick said, with a resigned sigh. “It’s a date for a few hours and then I will be back home.”

“Tt,” Damian replied. “You won’t let me out to visit Colin because of how dangerous it is but you’ll find time to go on a date with Todd.”

“I won’t let you go out in costume to meet an untrained hero without supervision or any way for me to know that Ra’s hasn’t gotten his hands on you,” Dick said. “Tonight I made specific plans, the security system is on full alert, Tim is here to…” Babysit. “Provide back up. There’s a difference.”

Damian didn’t look impressed.

“When all of this is over, you’ll be free to spend time with Colin as much as you want,” Dick said. “Right now? I just can’t afford the risk.”

“Except when it’s for you,” Damian muttered.

Dick seemed to be wavering and Jason took his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay if you want to cancel, bluebird.”

“I don’t,” Dick whispered.

Of course not. He’d gone from being Damian’s brother to being his father without any time to ease into it. He’d gone from having complete freedom to having a connection to this apartment, this city. This boy. Dick needed a break, for his own sanity, and even Jason could see that.

“Then let’s go,” Jason said softly. “He’ll understand one day.”

Tim walked out of the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. “You’re still here?”

“We’re leaving,” Jason said.

Dick nodded. “Try not to kill each other.”

“No promises, Father,” Damian said, turning his glare to Tim.

Tim rolled his eyes. “We’ll be fine, Dick. Just go.”

Dick pulled the door shut and leaned against the wood, shutting his eyes and breathing. Jason didn’t push for anything, just held his hand while the other man squeezed it and waited until Dick was ready. He opened his eyes and lead Jason to the staircase where they walked down.

Dick still didn’t let go of his hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jason asked, when they were well out of range of the apartment.

“No,” Dick said immediately. And then, “Yes.”

“I’m getting mixed signals, babe,” Jason said.

Dick smiled weakly. “I don’t want to ruin this date with parenting talk, Jay.”

“You’re not going to ruin anything,” Jason said.

Dick’s smile faded and he looked away. He squeezed Jason hand and replied, “It feels a lot like wearing the cowl.”

Jason didn’t interrupt. The hardest part was getting Dick to start talking, after that he could usually keep himself going.

“I don’t mean that it feels like I’m stepping into Bruce’s shoes, because I always knew. Even if the rest of you didn’t, I knew he was mine,” Dick said. “But when Bruce got lost in time, I had to be Damian’s guardian. I had to stop running and stop being the easy-going, fun loving brother and start being the boss. It’s hard, you know? I don’t know how Bruce does it.”

Jason’s lips thinned but he still didn’t say anything. Dick, however, caught the look and smiled tight. “I know how you feel about it, Jason, and I admit that Bruce wasn’t perfect but it’s really hard work having to learn how to be a parent. Especially to a kid who has already got a mile long list of issues to work through. I don’t know why he ever took me in and I certainly don’t know how he took you and Tim and Damian in after.”

“What does this have to do with you and Damian?” Jason asked.

“Because it feels… it feels like pretending,” Dick said. “Like I’m putting on an act. Like I wake up and I have to perform because Damian is standing there and waiting for me to be a father.”

Jason couldn’t imagine how exhausting it must have been for Dick to feel like he was constantly putting on a show. He might have been a natural born performer but he was still human. “You know, you _are_ his father. There doesn’t have to be an act.”

“Doesn’t seem to matter,” Dick said. “I have to do better this time. I have to be better this time. He forgave me, you know? Right away. Just like that. Said I had given him so many second chances that I deserved one too but I can’t mess it up this time.”

Damian would never forgive him.

Jason knew a lot about Dick. A good portion of that came from dating him. Like knowing that Dick woke up early without an alarm clock most days and that he couldn’t pick up after himself without serious incentive. He knew Dick slept on the side of the bed closest to the door. But a lot of it came from watching the man when they were both younger. When Jason was just barely in his teens and trying to emulate someone he’d thought Bruce viewed as perfect. He knew the tension and release of muscles in every warm up and cool down, knew that Dick preferred Crocky Crunch but on really bad days he’d sprinkle a little extra sugar. Jason still wasn’t sure how he didn’t have diabetes.

Jason knew that years of living with Bruce, whose expectations had only ever been too high, had left Dick with a fear of failure that would nearly put Jason’s own fears to shame.

Dick was a perfectionist. It was as simple as that. And maybe some of that had been innate but Jason was content to blame the worst of it on Bruce. Because Dick strived to be the one person that Bruce needed for the man, strived to protect the city one hundred percent. It had to be why Dick hadn’t been content with vigilantism and taken to wearing a badge during the daytime for so long. Dick knew failure wasn’t an option. Either he was perfect or people died.

That wasn’t a healthy way to live life.

“Damian loves you, Dick. He’ll understand if you make a mistake or two,” Jason said. “Neither of you are used to being in the positions that you are in.”

Dick didn’t look convinced. Not that Jason thought a short one on one chat in the staircase was going to fix everything.

They were all _way_ too screwed up for that.

“I just need a break,” Dick whispered. Jason hated how much it sounded like embarrassment or shame. Like the idea of needing some space to breathe was so abhorrent to Dick that he felt like there was something to be ashamed about.

Jason cupped the man’s cheek and leaned in for a kiss. Ignored the way Dick’s lips seemed to tremble under his from the weight of stress. He pulled away but left his hand where it was. “Then let’s go out to dinner and make a night of it.”

“Thank you,” Dick said.

There shouldn’t be that much pain in those blue eyes.

~~~

Three hours later, Jason was walking back up the stairs with Dick. The older man looked like the break had done him some good. His shoulders were lighter, his eyes brighter, and his fingers wrapped comforting within Jason’s. Intertwined.

They stopped at the top of the stairs, both staring at the door, and Jason reluctantly pulled his hand away. “We should do this again.”

As much as he’d like their spontaneous dates and comforting nights together, Jason knew that things had to change. He’d get used to the planned dates and dressy clothes.

“I’d like that,” Dick said.

Dick had the penthouse. Perks of owning the building, Jason supposed. It meant that he didn’t have to worry when he repeated his earlier actions and wrapped an arm around Dick’s waist. He yanked Dick against him and locked their lips together, backing Dick up against the wall and deepening it further.

Jason would do anything to keep that bright eyed look on the love of his life, but this was hardly a chore.

Dick smiled against the kiss and slid fingers into Jason’s hair to keep him held there against Dick’s mouth. Dick was often all teeth, nipping on skin and clicking their teeth together and squeezing tight on Jason’s bottom lip almost to the point of breaking skin and then sucking on his bottom lip like he was doing right now. It made Jason weak in the knees and moan.

“Quiet,” Dick reprimanded gently, playfully.

“I don’t think you understand how challenging that is to do,” Jason replied dryly.

Dick brushed a thumb over Jason’s bottom lip. “I thought you liked a challenge.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be dating you,” Jason replied.

Dick gaped in surprise and then slugged him in the shoulder. “You better not have just called me easy.”

Dick wasn’t easy. He was an emotional lover. Dick just got emotional very easily. With a lot of people.

Jason was past jealousy. Really.

“Just for that, I’ll show you challenging,” Dick muttered.

Jason didn’t know what he meant until Dick sank to his knees. “Shit.”

“Better keep quiet, Little Wing,” Dick said.

Jason glanced at the closed door and the empty steps he knew no one was going to come up and cursed under his breath. “Go easy on the little when you’re face to face with my dick, okay?”

Dick snorted and worked the button open on Jason’s pants. He sucked in a breath when Dick pulled his boxer briefs down to free him. Dick’s eyes rolled up to meet Jason’s. “This is really going to be a struggle for you, isn’t it?”

Jason didn’t reply, just slid his fingers into Dick’s shaggy black hair.

Dick reached up a hand and wrapped it around Jason’s mostly soft length. Dick was like sex walking and Jason could remember more than once spending too long in the shower with an image of Dick peeling out of his costume at the forefront of his mind. But Jason wasn’t a pubescent teen any longer and he could usually watch Dick walk around without attaching some sexual significance to it.

Usually. Some of Dick’s clothes were just a smidge too tight for Jason’s sanity.

But despite the whiplash of zero to sixty in terms of sex, Jason’s cock seemed to be perfectly content to start hardening at Dick’s gentle stroking. There were callouses on Dick’s fingers, not surprising for anyone who fought and sparred and worked with weapons as often as any of them did. They just added an extra sensation and Jason tipped his head back against the wall as Dick worked him into a full erection that way and then tightened gradually to pump him faster and harder.

“Don’t forget to stay quiet, Little Wing,” Dick said softly.

Jason remembered but he was starting to think that order was designed as torture. How was he supposed to stay quiet when Dick was doing that? And the man hadn’t even really gotten started.

There was a heat building in Jason’s lower abdomen when Dick slid his hand to Jason’s base and stilled his motions. A small, raspy whimper escaped his throat as his hips jerked for more friction but Dick only leaned forward and licked the tip.

Barely a kitten lick and that was a strange set of words for Dick. Jason faintly wondered if any of Dick’s previous lovers had ever described him as a sex kitten. It wasn’t altogether wrong. Then Dick was taking the head in his mouth, massaging the tip with the rough texture of his tongue, and all thought went flying out of Jason’s head. His jaw was clenched painfully to keep any stray sounds from alerting anyone to their presence.

Air brushed sensitive skin as Dick inhaled through his nose and then pushed forward, taking Jason in deeper. Sucking noises, wet and seemingly too loud even if Jason knew they were relatively quiet, made Jason tighten his hand in Dick’s hair. He needed something to hold onto, something to ground him from moaning at the sensation.

Dick’s head moved back and forth, bobbing on Jason’s cock, and Jason watched with the heat growing to a burning level as he tried to keep his ass against the wall. As hot as the image of fucking Dick’s mouth was, there was something altogether more powerful about the way Dick was in control of it. Dick curling his free hand around Jason’s hips and holding him still. Dick sucking when he wanted and then dragging his tongue along the vein on the underside of Jason’s cock, in complete command of Jason’s pleasure.

Dick pulling off and repeating that kitten lick from before. Jason gasped. “Sex kitten.”

Dick paused. “What?”

Jason chuckled softly, forcing himself to stay quiet even when it felt harder than anything he’d done before. “I said sex kitten.”

“That’s a new one,” Dick mumbled, bending forward and taking Jason back into his mouth.

Jason laughed again, tipping his head back and panting as Dick swallowed him all down at once and the muscles in Dick’s throat massaged him. “F-fu-“

A squeeze on Jason’s hip quieted him.

Silky strands of black hair slipped in and out of his fingers and Jason followed Dick’s motions with his hand. Dick pulled back, just far enough to tease the slit with his tongue, drive Jason up the wall until muscles were clenching and he was muttering, “I’m going to… going to…”

Dick got the meaning, moving forward to suck Jason all the way into his mouth again and swallowed around him to make Jason come apart at the seams. Dick was ready when the first spurts of Jason’s orgasm hit the back of his tongue and throat.

Right up until the door opened and Dick pulled off too fast and not fast enough and ended up choking and coughing as he turned to avoid looking at Damian and Tim as they stepped out.

“-never have made that bet with you. Dick is going to kill me if he finds out I-“ Tim cut off.

“Todd what are you- Grayson!”

If death by mortification was a legitimate way to die, Jason and Dick would have both been pushing up daisies. Jason fingers were struggling to get himself covered and his pants zipped. He felt his cheeks on fire and glanced at the boys down the hall. Both were gaping and Tim had his hand over Damian’s eyes.

Damian wasn’t pushing it away which said something about the situation.

Dick was still coughing and Jason didn’t think that was helping the situation any. He was also still on his knees.

“I should probably…go…” Jason said softly.

“Don’t you dare leave me with this mess,” Dick growled. His voice was hoarse and Jason knew why and it was making him blush all the harder, made his breath hitch.

Jason sighed but he didn’t take off like he wanted to.

“Why would you do that in the hallway?” Damian’s voice cracked with his incredulity and Tim’s hand was still covering his eyes.

Dick coughed again, presumably to clear his throat, and replied, “I’m not used to having someone in the apartment, Damian. I didn’t think about someone coming out.” He paused. “You weren’t _supposed_ to be going out.”

“We played chess. I lost. He wanted to go down to the corner and get ice cream,” Tim filled in.

“ _Why would you do that in the hallway?_ ” Damian demanded, voice raising to an almost comical level. Comical if Jason wasn’t still trying to figure out how he was going to look the kid in the face from now until the end of eternity.

Dick looked helpless and Jason didn’t have the first fucking clue how to explain. There was a whole definition of exhibitionism and a psychological aspect to Dick and his childhood of performing and a biological aspect of adrenaline from years of running across rooftops and beating up bad guys. None of it seemed appropriate for a child’s ears. “It’s one of those things you’ll understand better when you’re older…”

Damian’s fingers wrapped around Tim’s wrist like he was going to pull it away from his eyes before he asked, “Are you both decent?”

“Yes,” Jason said.

Tim dropped his hand before Damian could pull it away. “I think _I_ should go.”

“Thank you for looking after him, Tim,” Dick said softly, climbing to his feet.

“Please never ask again,” Tim pleaded as he disappeared down the stairs.

Jason watched him go, still not having moved from the wall. “How come he gets to leave but I don’t?”

“Jason,” Dick warned.

It was a visible change. Jason could see what he was talking about. The Dick he knew; playful, sex kitten Dick, became a father who had to stand up with his shoulders back and look his son in the eye. Even if he’d just been caught with someone’s dick down his throat. “Damian, let’s go back inside and we can talk about it.

“Could we just not talk about it?” Damian asked.

Dick looked unsure and even though Jason knew which side he was going to fall on, he still found himself wishing that Dick would just take the break and let the kid walk away without a conversation. “No. I don’t think we can.”

Damian’s own cheeks were flushed. He blushed the same way that Dick did. His skin tone was so dark it was almost impossible to see the pink on his skin. “Does _Todd_ have to be present?”

“Yes,” Dick said.

Jason wondered how much of that had to do with Dick not wanting to do this alone.

Damian looked like he’d rather fall down the stairs than have a conversation related to any of what had just happened and Jason could relate. Still, Dick opened the door and both Jason and Damian filed in before he shut the door behind him. The oldest leaned against the door, like he was almost scared one or both of his victims would bolt if given the opportunity.

“So, Jason and I are in a relationship,” Dick said.

Damian was very steadfastly not looking at Jason. “I was aware.”

Dick nodded. “And when adults are in relationships, they partake in activities like… like…”

“Like oral sex,” Jason supplied.

Dick winced and then nodded. “Yeah, like that.”

Damian wrinkled his nose and looked away. “I know about sex, Father.”

Jason might have laughed at the absolutely horrified look on Dick’s face. “What do you mean? Did Talia tell you-“

“Of course not,” Damian said. “We had a class on it this past fall.”

“Oh,” Dick said softly.

A class. Jason didn’t remember any class on sex education when he was in school. Of course, by the time any class had gotten around he’d already had a pretty vivid illustration of how the process worked.

“I fail to see what sexual intercourse and adult relationships have to do with you putting Todd’s genitals in your mouth in _plain view of anyone who entered the hallway_ ,” Damian said, heavy emphasis on the last portion.

Dick swallowed hard. Jason could physically see it in the way his Adam’s apple bobbed and there might have been a thin sheen of sweat on his face. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to enter the hallway, Damian.”

“You forgot I was here?” Damian asked.

Dick was silent for a moment and then admitted, “Yes. I did.”

Damian was trying not to look hurt but the boy wasn’t very good at covering his emotions. Never had been. How had Jason not seen the connection sooner? He’d always associated Damian’s anger with Bruce but Bruce was usually so good at covering that all up and Damian was a ball of raw nerves.

Much like someone else Jason knew.

“I’m not used to having someone here and none of the other tenants would come up to this floor,” Dick said. “I know this hasn’t been easy on you but I’m still getting used to you being here, okay? This obviously isn’t the kind of trial and error experience that I wanted to have either, but it happened and I just want you to know that if you were uncomfortable or had any questions that Jason and I are both here to help.”

“I didn’t volunteer for that,” Jason said. Dick looked at him, eyes pleading, and Jason sighed. He was too weak to those baby blues. “Fine. Yeah, brat. Questions, concerns.”

Damian crossed his arms over his chest. He looked young and confused and Jason hated that he couldn’t keep that front up the way he usually did. He hated that the kid couldn’t be just as untouchable, unshakable, and unbeatable as he liked to pretend he was.

And, maybe, Jason hated a little that he knew what that felt like. To put off to the world that you couldn’t be hurt but knowing damn well that you were a kid scared as shit that someone was going to see right through you. The only difference was, someone had seen through it and smashed him and his façade to pieces.

He’d do what he could to keep the same from happening to Dick’s son.

“Are you going to do that here?” Damian asked.

Technically, they already had but Jason didn’t necessarily need to say that out loud. Dick didn’t say anything so Jason figured he was fielding this one. He didn’t even know what to say but his mouth was opening and the answer that came out surprised him, he thought, as much as it surprised Dick. “Not if you don’t want us to.”

Damian looked relieved at that and Jason’s dick was cursing his mouth for its mutiny.

“We’d like to,” Jason tacked on, belatedly. “Because we _are_ adults in an adult relationship and that’s an aspect that we enjoy. But if it makes you uncomfortable, then we won’t.”

Damian glanced at his father and then back to Jason. “I don’t mind.”

Jason _knew_ Damian had been relieved to hear they wouldn’t do it if he didn’t want them to. “Are you sure?”

“Just don’t do it in the hallways. Or the kitchen. Or the living room,” Damian said. “Or anywhere where I can walk in and see it.”

“That’s more than reasonable, Damian,” Dick said. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good,” Damian said.

Dick pulled away from the door and wrapped his arms around Damian. Jason saw him get as far as pulling Damian towards him to kiss his forehead and then his boyfriend was stumbling back, choking again and grabbing his throat where Damian had laid a strike. The boy’s eyes were wide and he snapped out, “If you presume to lay your mouth on me before thoroughly brushing your teeth and repeatedly rinsing out your mouth with mouthwash I will end you.”

Jason’s lips quirked and then a laugh slipped out.

“It’s not funny, Todd,” Damian said.

That was it. Jason was laughing. He wiped the tears from his eyes and looked over to see Dick laughing too.

Damian looked irritated but maybe not quite as irritated as Jason was expecting. “I hate both of you. I should have said no.”

“I’ll go brush my teeth, Damian,” Dick said. He laughed a bit more and then turned to go down the hallway.

Jason heard the door close and then turned back to Damian. He softened the smirk on his face and then looked down at him. “You know, I was serious. We won’t do anything if you don’t want us to.”

“And I was serious, I don’t care,” Damian said.

“You looked relieved,” Jason pointed out.

Damian shrugged. “Wayne had relations. Grays- Father has had relations before. I just wanted to know if you would…”

Damian trailed off and when Jason realized the boy wasn’t going to continue on his own, he prompted, “You wanted to know if I would what?”

“I wanted to know if you would try and force things to stay the same,” Damian muttered. “Father loves you. I don’t want to lose him.”

To Jason, was the unfinished part of the sentence. No matter what Dick said, forgiveness or no forgiveness, it was clear to Jason that there was a lot more emotion here than Damian was willing to admit to. To a point, he understood. Damian had been given up by Talia and now, come to find out, Dick too. It probably didn’t leave the kid feeling very wanted. Who could fault the kid for wanting to know that Dick wasn’t going to drop him because Damian didn’t want Dick and Jason to have sex?

“So do we need to talk about any of this?” Jason asked.

Damian wrinkled his nose. “Tt. I’d rather we didn’t.”

Jason let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.” He called down the hallway. “I’m heading home for the night, Dick!”

Dick opened the bathroom door and came out, toothbrush in mouth. He walked over and gave Jason a foamy kiss on the cheek. As much of a goodnight as he could manage with his mouth full of toothpaste.

“You too, Dickiebird,” Jason said. He waved to Damian. “Night, demon brat.”

“Todd,” the brat said in goodbye.

Jason opened the door and caught Dick trying to steal a kiss on Damian’s forehead again or something and the boy dodged and pointed down the hallway. “More brushing. Mouthwash. And a few hours.”

Dick rolled his eyes and disappeared down the hallway. Jason closed the door behind him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this chapter to my grandmother who passed July 25, 2016. More than anyone I've ever met, she supported my writing. I'll miss her forever.
> 
> WARNING: Domestic violence as viewed from a child in the household. Non-graphic since the child is not in the room until it's over.

**Gotham: Now**

In the morning, Dick woke up and opened his bedroom door. Closing it behind him crinkled a paper and Dick pulled the bright yellow sticky note from where it was pressed to the wood of the door beside the doorknob. There was an arrow pointing towards the doorknob and the words, THIS CAN FUNCTION AS A LOCK. PLEASE USE IT.

Dick smiled before folding up the note and tossing it in the wastebasket in the living room.

Damian, it appeared, was not up yet. Dick reached for the more convenient coffee pot before changing directions and opening the cupboard doors above the stove. In the back, covered with dust from disuse, was the housewarming tea kettle that Alfred had bought him so long ago. While it got use, it was rarely. Dick had switched to the more heavily caffeinated coffee for some time. Seeing it covered in the thin layer of dust made his heart ache.

He made a silent note to get more use out of it. Not that it would be a chore when Damian was a heavy tea drinker and would surely put his nose up if Dick even thought of serving the little prince coffee.

He carefully washed it out and off before filling the pot with water and setting it on the stove, turning the fire up, and then digging through a different set of cupboards for the tea bags he’d bought to compliment the kettle. He set them to the side and then went to the fridge and peered inside to find some type of grocery. He was far from a stellar cook, probably not going to be opening up a restaurant any time soon. However, he’d managed to survive on his own for as long as he had with the help of take out, online recipes, and prepackaged food and he couldn’t help but think that if he could do it then it couldn’t be that bad for anyone else.

He ended up with toaster waffles that he pushed down and pulled out syrup for. The water continued heating up and there was going to be three or so minutes that Dick could get Damian up. He padded out of the kitchen, through the living room, and back down the hallway before knocking on Damian’s bedroom door. “Kiddo?”

“You may enter,” Damian replied.

Apparently the kid _was_ up. Dick twisted the handle and pushed the door open a little. Damian was curled up on the floor in the corner and Dick might have been worried if not for the sketchbook in his hands. Dick had found the boy in all sorts of unusual places, all in search of the perfect angle to catch his muse. Said muse, it appeared, took the identity of the cat, Alfred, this morning. The black ball of fluff was draped over the foot of the bed so that half of its body dangled from the edge. It was a rather endearing sight and Dick could understand Damian wanting to immortalize it in his artwork. “Looks good.”

“Thank you,” Damian said politely.

Dick watched Damian’s small fingers create the scene on the pages of his sketchbook, noticed the position of the cat’s chest and realized that Damian had timed his sketch to take place in between inhale and exhale. It was a small detail, but one that brought light to the black and white drawing.

Dick cleared his throat softly, trying to disturb neither the artist nor his model. “I’m making waffles.”

Damian’s fingers paused and then he looked up. “You don’t know how to make waffles.”

Dick snorted. “They’re the frozen kind. Toaster waffles.”

Damian nodded and went back to his work. “That makes more sense.”

“I feel like I should be hurt,” Dick said. “Why don’t you come get breakfast when you’re done?”

Damian filled in a few details and then closed the sketchbook before pulling himself to his feet. “Thank you, I’d like to eat it now though.”

The kettle whistled loudly and the cat started, pulling himself up and yawning. Dick watched the feline stretch and then jump onto the ground before prancing out of the door and down the hall. “Sorry.”

“Its fine,” Damian assured him. “I have the details I need to fill in the rest if I so choose.”

Damian walked out and Dick followed, going into the kitchen and pulling the kettle off of the burner. He turned the burner off and then put a tea bag in each cup. “It’s just the store bought stuff, cheap I guess. Not the kind of thing Alfred would get you. But if you want something in particular, we’ll add it to the grocery list. All you have to do is say the word.”

“I am perfectly content with what you have to offer,” Damian said.

Dick finished the cups and brought them over to the table, then made up Damian’s waffles and brought them over as well. Sometimes, Damian could be so untouchable.

And sometimes, like now, Dick could barely hide his smile as the boy childishly swung his legs under the table. Small, barely noticeable, but a present swing.

“These are horrendous,” Damian muttered.

Dick raised his eyebrows, sipping from his tea as he watched. “Doesn’t seem to keep you from eating them.”

“Should I starve instead?” Damian asked. He took a big bite, more than made sense if one took in account his apparent abhorrence of the frozen waffles.

Dick smiled behind the cup of coffee. Damian could pretend if he wished, but Dick knew any kid would fawn over sugary nonsense given the opportunity.

“Cease your foolish expression,” Damian snapped. “You look like a simpleton.”

~~~

Jason’s footsteps echoed in the openness of the Cave. The man in the chair didn’t look up but he spoke and Jason smirked bitterly when he realized who Bruce thought he was speaking to. “I’ve started tracking the League’s movements. You and Damian should have better warning from this point-“

“Wrong person, old man,” Jason said. “It’s hard to believe you can’t distinguish Golden Boy’s feet from the rest of us mere mortals.”

Bruce stopped in the middle of his sentence to turn and look at Jason as he finished coming down the stairs. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Clearly,” Jason replied.

He walked across the Cave and stood behind Bruce’s chair when the man turned back around to face the computer. “I’ve been tracking the League’s movements. Dick and Damian should have better warning from this point forward.”

“Unless something slips through the cracks,” Jason pointed out.

“It won’t,” Bruce said.

“It might,” Jason argued.

Bruce turned and looked at Jason again. “It won’t.”

Jason met his gaze for a moment and then looked up at the computer. “There’s a lot of presence outside of the city, within a day’s travel. Nothing closer.”

“It’s my city, and the first attack already failed,” Bruce said. “They’re getting smarter, making plans.”

“It gives us time but when they do come, they’ll be harder to fight off,” Jason said.

Bruce nodded. “And every attack after that will learn from the mistakes of the one prior. The only answer is to lock Ra’s up and take away the driving force behind the attacks.”

“Your hatred of killing cost me my life, Bruce. Are you going to let it cost you Dick and Damian’s too?” Jason demanded.

The muscles in the older man’s shoulders tightened, his spine straightened out. “I thought you were past blaming me for your death.”

“I was,” Jason said. He closed his eyes. “I am. I’m not blaming you for my death. I’m telling you that Ra’s needs to die. Just like Joker.”

“The answer is no,” Bruce said.

“The answer is to put a bullet in their brains and protect the people you care about first and foremost,” Jason said. He could feel the hiss of the Pit in the back of his mind. Over the years it had grown quieter and now, within the span of a mere two weeks, he’d lost control once and he felt like he was losing it again. “And it’s worse, you fucking fool, because you’re not just refusing to do it yourself. You won’t let me do it either and protect him. He’s all I have!”

Bruce turned and Jason _knew_ he was looking at his eyes and seeing the green and dismissing Jason’s words as Pit madness. Like Jason couldn’t have a damn thought of his own. Every bitter word, every threat snapped at the Bat – Bruce could write it off as whispers from an eerie green glow in Jason’s eyes. “Come back when you’ve calmed down.”

“Fuck you, Bruce,” Jason growled. “I’m fine.”

“You’re destabilizing,” Bruce said. “And you lash out when you do. I can’t have your emotional outburst distracting me. Come back when you’ve calmed down.” He turned and Jason was dismissed. Just like that.

Jason swore, slamming his fist into the computer before turning on his heel and walking away. He didn’t know where to go.

And then he did.

~~~

Damian was sitting on Grayson’s couch. _Their_ couch, Grayson said. What was Grayson’s, was Damian’s. That was a nice sentiment, one Damian hadn’t been aware he wanted until Grayson gave it so freely.

With Wayne, everything was his.

_You live under my roof, you’ll follow my rules._

With Mother, everything had to be earned.

_When you’ve proven yourself, it will be all yours._

With Grayson, the couch was simply theirs. Both of theirs. Shared without a thought.

Damian liked that a lot.

There was a knock at the door and Damian looked up. Grayson walked around more tense than he used to. Damian supposed that was understandable. It didn’t mean that Damian didn’t mourn at the stiffness to the way Grayson walked across the floor and peeked through the hole in the door to see who was on the other side. The action made Damian glance at the little step ladder to the side of the door that Grayson had instructed him to use to do the same.

Grayson smiled and opened the door. “Hey, Jay.”

Damian was not as easily satisfied. Todd’s hands were shaking and he looked even tenser than Grayson did, something Damian had not thought possible. There was an ashen look to his skin and a green glow in his eyes that Damian would recognize anywhere.

Who better than an al Ghul to recognize the Lazarus Pit?

One of Todd’s twitchy hands curled around the doorframe and Damian watched Grayson’s smile fade. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“You’re always welcome here, Little Wing,” Grayson said. The smile was back, tighter this time. He turned, searching for Damian, and then suggested, “Little D, why don’t you go to your room for a second so I can talk to Jason.”

Damian hesitated on the couch, not particularly pleased with the idea of leaving Grayson with Todd like this.

“Damian,” Grayson said, a little sharper this time. “Go to your room.”

Reluctantly, Damian slid off the couch and onto his feet before walking out of the living room. He glanced back to see Grayson closing the door behind Todd and then went to his room. He left the door open a crack and sat on the edge of his bed, listening as best he could from his place down the hall. Whatever was being said was just low enough to be no more than a mumble from Damian’s distance which was partially reassuring.

Alfred jumped up onto the bed and curled up in Damian’s lap. Damian rolled his eyes at the kitten and stroked its fur. “Father is fine.”

The kitten stayed where it was.

Voices rose from the kitchen. Grayson’s first. “We’ve talked about this already, Jason.”

And then back to mumbling. A quiet white noise sort of sound that Damian strained desperately to hear but couldn’t.

“Fucking ridiculous!” Todd.

Alfred made a noise of displeasure at Damian’s rough stroking. He quietly apologized and returned to the gentle strokes to make the cat settle back on his lap.

“I’m not losing you.” It was almost a growl and, distorted the way it was, Damian couldn’t tell who spoke.

A plate shattered against the wall and Damian jumped off the bed, displacing Alfred. He darted through the cracked door and slipped down the hall, peering around the wall and into the kitchen. Todd was on his knees and Grayson had his arms around him, holding him and brushing his fingers through his hair. Damian’s eyes went over to the bits and pieces of a broken plate on the tiled floor and then back to his father and Todd.

“You’re fine,” Grayson whispered. If Damian did not have some skill reading lips, he’d never have heard it. “I’m not going anywhere. I wouldn’t do that to you. You can’t let Bruce work you up like that.”

“I’m sorry, Dick,” Todd said. “I didn’t even think about Damian being here.”

“It’s fine. He’s in his room,” Grayson said. He kissed Todd on the lips and then stood. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up and I’ll clean up in here?”

Todd nodded and stood, starting towards the exit. Damian pulled away from the edge and ran back down the hall where a very irritated Alfred was now curled up in the spot Damian had been sitting, soaking up the leftover warmth. The bathroom door opened, closed, and Damian heard the water from the sink faucet turn on.

“Father is fine,” Damian repeated to the cat. Alfred only stared at him.

~~~

Jason splashed water on his face, looking into the dark blue eyes in the mirror. They’d used to be much lighter. Nearly Dick’s bright blue shade, a touch darker. Now there was a permanent green tint to the iris. Even now, after he’d violently rid himself of the building pressure in his head from the Pit, Jason could see the touch of green there.

Forever. They’d looked into answers and nothing would rid the Pit from him.

The sound of the plate shattering against the wall replayed in his mind. He could have thrown it at Dick instead. Damian could have come back in.

_Damian could have come back in._

The kid had enough in his head without worrying about what Jason was going to do. Dick had enough to worry about without Jason falling apart on him. He just needed to keep a better hold on it. Not let Bruce wind him up like that, as Dick had said in the kitchen.

He splashed the water on him again before grabbing the hand towel from the ring on the wall and drying off his hands, face, and then turning off the sink. He hung the towel back up and then left the bathroom, careful to turn off the lights as he did. Dick was no Bruce Wayne and electric bills were a bitch.

The door at the end of the hall, Damian’s door, was opened a crack but Jason turned and headed down the hall towards the kitchen once more. He found Dick emptying a dustpan of broken glass into the trashcan. “I’ll run that out, Dickie.”

Dick looked up and smiled warmly. “Thank you.”

No need to thank him. Glass in a garbage bag was dangerous. Like hell was Jason risking Dick getting hurt on a piece of glass that wouldn’t be there if not for Jason. “Not a problem.”

He closed the lid on the can and put the broom and dustpan away before walking over and cupping Jason’s cheeks between his hands. Jason could feel callouses on his boyfriend’s hands. “You know its fine, right?”

“It’s not fine,” Jason said, wrapping his hands around Dick’s wrists. “Damian was here.”

“Damian was in his room,” Dick corrected. “He’s fine. I’m fine. I don’t need eight sets of plates.”

“What if I threw it at you?” Jason asked.

“You didn’t,” Dick said.

“But-“

“You didn’t,” Dick repeated.

Jason pulled Dick’s hands away and brushed his own thumb over Dick’s jaw. There had been a bruise there, once. “I could have.”

“You’ve gotten better since then,” Dick said. “You didn’t throw it at me. That’s what matters.”

Jason sighed softly. “You should grab Damian. It’s not fair to keep him in his room.”

“I’ll grab him now. You can join us for lunch in a few minutes,” Dick said.

Jason’s lips quirked. “You mean I can make you two lunch.”

Dick laughed as he disappeared down the hallway. “If you insist.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one took awhile. I'm terribly sorry. Writer's block is terrible. But here it is. Please enjoy.

**Gotham: Now**

They were the picture of normalcy as they sat around the dining room table. Or rather, as normal as normal could get in Damian's family. Grayson was seated at the head of the table with Todd on one side and Damian on the other. There was a large bowl of macaroni in the center of the table and an equally large bowl of salad. Todd, as per usual, could not simply throw lettuce in the bowl and put salad dressing out on the table the way Grayson did. It was an assortment of various greens mixed with olives and other vegetables with cheese interspersed throughout the mixture and one single solitary vinaigrette dressing already mixed into the bowl. The macaroni took a similar turn. One bite was filled with at least three different kinds of cheese and there was a smoky flavor that Damian, with all his worldly knowledge, could not place at all.

"It's vegetarian," Damian said.

"Well, yeah," Jason replied, fork stopped halfway from the plate to his mouth. "Dickie said something about a cow and you not wanting to eat meat anymore so-"

"Thank you," Damian said.

Teal eyes flickered from Damian's face to Grayson's who had also stopped eating to watch the interaction. At least his fork was in the bowl. Todd returned his gaze to Damian. "Not a problem."

"You are the superior cook, second only to Pennyworth," Damian said. "Father is abysmal with even common dishes."

Dick scowled. "I can cook."

"When you've gotten used to Alfie's meals, anything less than amazing just tastes like bland sand," Todd said, with a smile. "I spent a lot of time with Alfred in the kitchen. I appreciate the compliment."

"I can cook," Dick repeated.

Damian's lips quirked and he looked down at his meal. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the changed garbage bag now empty. The broken plate taken out of the house as if it never even existed at all. And the broom moved from one place to another. Damian caught himself looking over Grayson but found him absolutely free of bruising or cuts that could have come from the plate smashing against the wall near him.

And Todd was calm once more. No shaking hands or tension around the eyes. They were remarkably unfazed by Todd's outburst and Damian was left wondering if that had happened before.

Between them, Grayson set his hand on the table. Todd smiled and reached out, intertwining their fingers together. It made Grayson relax some, and so Damian held his tongue to keep from asking about the situation.

~~~

Dick tapped his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of the pop song blaring out of the speakers of his car. Jason was sitting beside him with the window down and his arm out of the window and Dick could look into the backseat of the car to see Damian texting madly on his phone.

Probably to Colin again.

"Tell your friend I said hi," Dick commented.

Damian hummed in response, thumbs still smacking the screen before he finally sent it off and looked up. "I haven't told him yet."

Why did that make Dick feel cold? "That's fine. Even if he thinks I'm your brother, I can still say hi."

"I know," Damian said. "I've passed on your inane greetings before."

Dick's fingers stilled on the steering wheel. "Yeah, I remember."

He caught Jason looking at him.

"I don't know how to tell him," Damian said.

Dick blew out a short breath, working very hard to keep calm. "Oh?"

"It's not exactly something I am comfortable putting into words through the medium of textual communication," Damian said.

"Understandable," Dick replied.

"But I don't know how I would say it face to face even if I could," Damian said.

Jason cleared his throat. "It doesn't change who you are, squirt."

Damian looked up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, nothing against Dickie but your parents don't make or break you," Jason said. "And thank God for that because my parents were a mess. So just... just tell him what happened. Face to face or via text message. What Bruce and Dick did, that's not you. You know? That's just what happened in the past."

In the mirror, Damian nodded. He picked up his phone again, texting another response back to his friend. Dick wondered what the kid would think of him when he found out. And then he almost laughed, because it was foolish to base himself off the opinion of a fifth grader but-

But what if the kid was right?

And eventually, would they have to tell the media? The Justice League? People would know and they would know what Dick had done. They would look down on Dick for abandoning his son to Bruce instead of taking care of him on his own. Dick had cultured the image of a trustworthy, dependable hero and in doing so had he forgone his duties to his family?

Or would his history of being a wandering, commitmentphobe finally be announced to the world at large?

Dick squeezed his hands around the steering wheel.

What would the kids at Damian's school say? Would they look down at him now? So many of them were rich, children of powerful men and women with more money in their grasp than God and meanwhile Damian was now living in a two bedroom apartment. Dick was by no means hurting for money but he was no Bruce Wayne. Even without the fall from grace, coming down from the height of the true Wayne heir to the child of a former circus performer, there was the aspect of everything that Damian had already said. Children could be cruel, vicious creatures and when one of them opened their mouth and told Damian that no one wanted him - would his son believe that?

After all, it was the first words out of Damian's mouth. No one wanted him, there was something wrong with him, Dick didn't love him.

Damian was wrong but could Dick fight past the boy's own doubts along with the biting words of his peers?

Jason grabbed Dick's knee and pulled the man out of his own thoughts. "Dickie, pull over."

"What?" Dick asked, his voice sounded strange and his eyes were blurring and suddenly Jason's words sounded like a really good idea. He slid the car to the shoulder and put it into park, letting Jason rub his back through the panic attack Dick had just put himself into.

"It's going to be okay," Jason whispered.

"Is he okay, Todd?" Damian asked.

Dick's shoulders dropped. He was failing at this. He couldn't be a parent and he didn't know why he'd ever told Damian. They could have tried to leave things the way they were. Damian had been adjusting to living with Bruce, things had been getting better, and now Dick was messing all of it up.

"He's going to be fine. I'm just going to drive the rest of the way to the Manor," Jason said. "Dickie, I'm just getting out to walk around to your side. Okay?"

Dick nodded, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the top of the steering wheel. Jason closed his door and Dick sighed. "Sorry, Damian."

Damian reached forward and put his hand on Dick's shoulder. He didn't speak but at some point, they hadn't really needed to.

Jason opened Dick's door and grabbed his hand to help him out. But instead of climbing inside, Jason pulled him to the front of the car and had him sit on the edge of the hood. Beneath him, the metal was warm from the heat of the engine and Dick let himself relax in the open air. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Dick said. "I'm stronger than this. I don't know what my problem is."

"Maybe parenting is just a hundred times harder than fighting the Joker," Jason said. He tipped Dick's head back so they could look into each other's eyes. "You're doing a good job, do you know that?"

"What are you basing that on?" Dick asked, ever the detective. Ever trying to get to the truth. "Where is your logic for that?"

"It's watching you with Damian and knowing that you're trying your hardest to give him the best life you can give him," Jason said.

Dick bit out a laugh that was too bitter to sound like him. "Maybe trying isn't good enough, Jason. What if I try and I fail anyways?"

Jason cupped his cheeks with his hands. "I know you, Dick. I know what you're doing to yourself. I know how much you're scared of failing because I have watched you punish yourself over and over again over things that were never your fault."

Dick sucked in a shuddering breath.

"Damian is not expecting the perfect father, bluebird. He's not expecting you to suddenly be the magical parent out of a Disney movie," Jason said. "He wants you to love him and try."

Dick nodded, swallowed. "I'm scared of what people will say to him, Jason. I'm scared of what the kids will say, what other heroes will say, what the media will say and I'm scared he'll believe it. I'm scared that it'll be true. I'm exactly the kind of father that abandoned his child and what does that say about me? What will he think that says about him?"

"I don't know," Jason admitted. "But I know that you can't borrow trouble. You have to deal with the problems in front of you today and stop punishing yourself for what might happen. Damian needs you here right now."

Dick was good at living in the moment, except for times like this. When he lost friends, when he was facing an insurmountable obstacle - sometimes even Dick got too caught up in the past or the future. Instead of the present where his son was in the car and Jason was standing in front of him and the two were trying to pull him back into the here and now.

"Do you honestly think I'm doing a good job?" Dick asked.

"Yes," Jason replied, no hesitation.

Dick nodded. He took a breath and got up, walking to the passenger side of the car and climbing inside. Jason got into the driver's seat. They pulled back onto the road and Dick buckled his seat belt. Damian spoke up from the back. "Colin says hi, Father."

Dick smiled a little. "That's good."

"I've asked him to stay the night when this is over," Damian said.

Dick's smile widened and he glanced at Jason to see an almost smug smirk on his face.

"Sounds like a plan, Damian," Dick said, setting his hand out the window and turning up the song on the radio.

~~~

"What's this?" Dick asked as he walked up to the Batcomputer and examined the many cameras going at once. Even Jason could admit that it was quite the set up. Bruce had gone all out, not that Jason had expected anything else in regards to his Golden Boy.

Bruce blew up one of the photos. Jason, driving. The man in question tensed. "Those drones you've been working on with me, I finally found a solution to them. We've been capable of determining a way to detect levels of Lazarus Pit in the blood for a long time but it wasn't until this morning when Jason stopped by that I considered that based on the sheer power of a Lazarus Pit, there are undoubtedly remnants leftover just by proximity to one. So I started tracking that, using Jason's blood samples to start with."

"Thanks for asking permission," Jason muttered.

"I would have but you stormed out of here," Bruce replied. He pulled back from the photo and pulled up another which was a video feed of Talia. "Talia was the other easy one to find because, much like Jason, she's used the Pit before. Her levels are, therefore, much higher than the average League member."

"Makes sense," Damian replied, from where he stood beside Bruce.

"But it's just as capable of detecting a much smaller amount. So I checked for levels in Gotham City and surrounding areas and then used cameras in the area to determine which targets needed the most surveillance. What resulted were the following eight people after I'd ruled out any below a specific skill point. Not that we shouldn't still always be on our guard, but the most dangerous of attacks we should have more than a fair amount of warning," Bruce said.

"Great," Dick said. Jason was pleased to see him relax some.

"But it's still just a defensive strategy," Damian said.

Jason hated to admit that he had thought the same thing.

"And with Grayson planning to end Grandfather's life, we need something offensive if we have any hopes of succeeding," Damian finished.

The Cave went silent. Bruce's hands curled into fists on the computer desk. Any progress Dick had made looked to be sucked into that black hole in the back of his head. "Bruce, I was going to tell you-"

"Killing is not the answer," Bruce said. "Killing is not how we solve this problem. It's the easy way out."

"You don't understand, Bruce. Normally I would agree, you know I would agree, you know what Blockbuster did to me and I wasn't even the one to pull the trigger but Ra's will never stop," Dick said. "God, we both know he will never stop. Just like Joker or Two Face or any of the others that have crossed the line and keep crossing over it. It's one thing when they're after Batman or Nightwing or Robin, even, but Ra's is after _Damian_. He's after the boy, not the mask, and I'm not going to watch him die for that."

Bruce was quiet.

"I can't watch my son die," Dick said. His shoulders straightened. "I understand that this means we're done. I know. But it doesn't change the facts. I never asked you to help me kill him, Bruce. I just want your help protecting Damian and I will handle Ra's myself."

Jason waited, and waited. Dick was _Dick_. He was the Golden Boy. He was Bruce's favorite. He was the first and the best and Jason was waiting for Bruce to tell Dick that it was different for him and he'd always welcome him back.

Dick wasn't surprised when those words never came, Jason could tell, but Jason? Jason was floored. Jason was the fuck up, the screw up, the black sheep. He was the murderer with insanity knocking around in his head who had a fucked up childhood and a mean drunk for a dad. He had the druggie mom and the history of violence. Deep down, Jason had always figured that Bruce was at fault because he found it easier to love Dickie for being perfect.

But Bruce was honestly going to let Dick walk away- No, _make_  him walk away because he chose his family over the code.

"You son of a bitch," Jason breathed. "You dumb son of a bitch. He is your son. More than any of us he is your son and you are going to destroy him when you push him away. Can't you see that?"

Bruce was silent.

Dick set his hand on the man's shoulder. "It's okay."

"No, it isn't. It's-" Jason cut off, because Dick looked strung out and exhausted. There was no time for Jason to blow up because Bruce didn't handle it and Dick had too much on his plate to deal with Jason exploding again. So he walked over and wrapped his arm around Dick's waist and glared daggers at the back of Bruce's head. "You're a son of a bitch."

And maybe breaking off from Bruce for good this time would be the one good thing to come out of all of this. Dick would be healthier away from the mess of a man that Bruce was.

"It's okay," Dick assured him.

It wasn't. But one day, it would be.

In terms of meetings, it was by far not the best of them. But they had a defense strategy and maybe eventually they would have a offensive strategy too.

~~~

Damian fell asleep on the couch. Dick said that was normal for him. He'd found the boy passed out on multiple pieces of furniture back when they were Batman and Robin. Jason supposed it made sense. The boy was so young, sleep was something he probably didn't get a lot of moonlighting as Robin. It was just startling to see him asleep on Dick's couch, peaceful and quiet as if he weren't a demon in his waking hours.

"How are you handling it?" Jason asked.

"I just sort of let him nap when he wants to," Dick said.

Jason scoffed. "Dick, don't play dumb. You know what I'm talking about. That whole thing with Bruce."

Dick's eyes widened before he sat on the arm of the armchair and shrugged. "Jason, I knew what was going to happen before Damian brought it up. I just had planned on having that conversation in private."

"I don't understand how you can just not care that he's going to kick you to the side for protecting Damian," Jason said. "I don't understand how you're not angry."

Dick ran a hand through his hair and then dropped it into his lap with a thump. "He's not pushing me out because I'm protecting Damian. He's pushing me out because he won't be able to trust me anymore. He's always been able to trust that I will put the code before everything. Him, you, me. I beat the Joker to death, Jason, and the only thing that kept Bruce and I from falling apart was that we were able to bring him back. I stood by while Tarantula shot Blockbuster and Bruce forgave me because I didn't pull the trigger. He needs to be able to trust me and I've bent the rules but I haven't broken them yet. But Ra's... Bruce is always going to have to keep as much an eye on me as he does the criminals when this is over. He's going to watch me and have to add murderer to the list of titles in his head. He's going to consider me as much of a threat to his code, what keeps him good, as all of them."

"For one life?" Jason asked incredulously.

"Because of Damian," Dick said. "Because as long as I'm willing to kill for Damian, then Damian will always be a reason he has to accept I will be willing to kill. Bruce is right, Jason. If I'm willing to do it once, then I'll be able to justify it again. Bruce can't be around that."

It seemed so stupid, so short sighted, so... Bruce. "Dick..."

Dick's lips quirked but the sadness never left his eyes. "I'm not upset, Jason. I was upset when I made the decision and I've come to terms with it. I'm not angry with him. I'll just miss what we had."

Jason wasn't one to initiate physical affection but he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Dick's. Felt the way Dick melted into his arms and kissed back with everything he had. Somehow managing to make it strong and firm, but gentle. Dick pulled away and glanced at Damian, still sound asleep on the couch. He knew the boy would be asleep for awhile, if habit served, and walked over to turn on music. It was quiet music, delicate and calming, directly off of Damian's playlist.

Dick grabbed Jason's hand and pulled him down the hall to the bedroom, pressing down the lock behind him as he closed the door and pulled Jason towards the bed.


End file.
